# Smooth CLI

10 Hacker News commenters recommended Smooth CLI and 7 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a token-efficient browser for AI agents that can test localhost apps. Critics mostly object to running in the cloud and sending data to a third party.

## Why people recommend it

- Cheaper and faster than alternatives (3 comments): "Making Smooth as cost-effective as possible it's been a core goal for us" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46914807)) "Our approach is actually very cost-effective compared to alternatives." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46914270)) "our technology is today 5x faster and 7x cheaper than browser-use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923894))

## What people warn about

- Runs only in the cloud (3 comments): "I am not gonna run this is in the cloud for my use cases." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921007)) "Offer up the locally hosted option and it'll be more widely adopted by those who actually want to use it as opposed to tinker." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46915003)) "until I realized that this doesn't run on my computer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46914704))
- Expensive, another subscription (4 comments): "Way too expensive, I'll wait for a free/open source browser optimized to be used by agents." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46914060)) "no way in hell am I adding yet another bill and using a web browser of all things as SaaS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46915680)) "Certainly not frustrated enough to pay to send my data to a 3rd party" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46915052))
- Unclear security and data handling (3 comments): "I didn't find a single mention of security anywhere (as far as I could tell!)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46913400)) "I'm unwilling to send my data to a 3rd party that is so new on the scene" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46915737)) "Certainly not frustrated enough to pay to send my data to a 3rd party" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46915052))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Browser Use](https://hackerapproved.com/p/browser-use.md): 52 recommend
- [PageAgent](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pageagent.md): 9 recommend
- [Rover by rtrvr.ai](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rover.md): 7 recommend
- [TinyFish Web Agent](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tinyfish-web-agent.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Smooth CLI", https://hackerapproved.com/p/smooth-cli/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).