--- title: "Kernel: crawler operator profile | Agent Ready Crawlers" description: "Kernel: crawler operator profile covering Kernel cloud browsers and Kernel Search (KernelSearchBot). Standards, dated prices and limits, read 2026-11-05." canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/kernel site: "Agent Ready Crawlers" last_updated: 2026-11-05 section: "Vendors" --- # Kernel: crawler operator profile | Agent Ready Crawlers > Kernel: crawler operator profile covering Kernel cloud browsers and Kernel Search (KernelSearchBot). Standards, dated prices and limits, read 2026-11-05. Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/kernel Site: Agent Ready Crawlers Last reviewed: 2026-11-05 Crawler operator # Kernel In short Kernel treats signing as a complement to its stealth mode and residential proxies, not a guarantee of access, and grants it by request to Startup and Enterprise customers. Its two signed identities, Kernel Agent and KernelSearchBot, each have a separate key directory, and the free tier carries USD 5 of monthly credits. Type [Crawler operator](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/by-type/crawler-operator/) Homepage [kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh) In one line Cloud browser company for AI agents that runs two signed identities, Kernel Agent for user-directed browsing and KernelSearchBot for search crawling, each with its own Web Bot Auth key directory so sites can treat them separately. Last read 2026-11-05 ## What Kernel does for this layer ### From the vendor's own pages Kernel Search identifies itself with the KernelSearchBot user agent token and follows robots.txt directives for that token, including crawl-delay. ([kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh/docs/bots.md)) Kernel says Kernel Agent is not an automatic crawler and signs its requests with Web Bot Auth instead of sending a dedicated crawler user agent token. ([kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh/docs/bots.md)) Kernel serves a separate key directory for each identity so that site owners can allow search indexing while blocking user-directed agents, or the reverse. ([kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh/docs/bots.md)) Kernel's Web Bot Auth token is an opt-in feature enabled selectively on request for Startup and Enterprise plan customers, and being on an eligible plan does not switch it on. ([kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh/docs/browsers/bot-detection/web-bot-auth.md)) Kernel's docs say Web Bot Auth complements its stealth mode and proxies, which deal with browser and network signals, and does not guarantee access to every site. ([kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh/docs/browsers/bot-detection/web-bot-auth.md)) Kernel's pricing page lists Free at USD 0 with USD 5 of monthly credits and 5 concurrent browsers, Hobbyist at USD 30 a month and Start-up at USD 200 a month with 150 concurrent browsers, plus usage at USD 0.0000166667 per GB-second. ([kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh/pricing)) Kernel says its usage rates include proxy traffic and that free tiers include stealth mode, which attaches a Kernel-managed residential proxy and a captcha auto-solver to each browser. ([kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh/pricing)) ### Claims the vendor makes about itself Kernel says it is listed in Cloudflare's bots and agents directory and in Vercel's public directory at bots.fyi. ([kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh/docs/bots.md)) ### What our crawl saw Both Kernel key directories, www.kernel.sh and search.bot.kernel.sh, returned HTTP 200 with content type application/http-message-signatures-directory+json and one Ed25519 key each on 2026-11-05. ([kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh/.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory)) ## Products and plans | Product | What it does | Price model | From | As of | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Kernel cloud browsers | Isolated Chromium for agents with stealth, proxies, managed auth and opt-in Web Bot Auth. | subscription plus usage Free with USD 5 monthly credits; Hobbyist USD 30, Start-up USD 200 a month; usage per GB-second. | USD 0 | 2026-11-05 | | Kernel Search (KernelSearchBot) | Crawler that builds search indexes and retrieval databases; signed and robots.txt-compliant. | No price recorded | ## Standards | Standard | Status | Evidence | | --- | --- | --- | | RFC 9309 (robots.txt) | Supports | KernelSearchBot follows robots.txt for its token, crawl-delay included. (kernel.sh) | | Web Bot Auth | Supports | Kernel Agent and Kernel Search sign with Web Bot Auth; key directories published per identity. (kernel.sh) | | Published IP list | No statement | No IP list on the bots page (2026-11-05). | | Cloudflare verified bots | Supports | Kernel says it is listed in Cloudflare's bots and agents directory. (kernel.sh) | ## Our checks | Check | Result | Method | Date | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Homepage fetch | HTTP 200 | GET with the crawl user agent after a robots.txt check | 2026-11-05 | | Web Bot Auth key directory | HTTP 200, application/http-message-signatures-directory+json, 1 Ed25519 key | GET https://www.kernel.sh/.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory with the crawl user agent after a robots.txt check | 2026-11-05 | | Web Bot Auth key directory | HTTP 200, application/http-message-signatures-directory+json, 1 Ed25519 key | GET https://search.bot.kernel.sh/.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory with the crawl user agent after a robots.txt check | 2026-11-05 | ## What Kernel does not do - Kernel does not sign customer sessions with its identity unless it approves a request on an eligible plan; other sessions rely on stealth mode and residential proxies. - Kernel publishes no IP list for KernelSearchBot or Kernel Agent (bots page read 2026-11-05). ## Reading notes KernelSearchBot and Kernel Agent are not rows in the [Crawler Index](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/) yet. ## Related pages on this site - [All crawler operators](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/by-type/crawler-operator/) 31 profiles - [The full vendor list](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/) 73 profiles in four types ## Sources - [kernel.sh](https://www.kernel.sh) read 2026-11-05 - [KERNEL Bots and Agents | Kernel docs](https://www.kernel.sh/docs/bots.md) read 2026-11-05 - [Web Bot Auth (WBA) | Kernel docs](https://www.kernel.sh/docs/browsers/bot-detection/web-bot-auth.md) read 2026-11-05 - [Kernel Agent key directory](https://www.kernel.sh/.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory) read 2026-11-05 - [Pricing | Kernel](https://www.kernel.sh/pricing) read 2026-11-05 - [Kernel Search key directory](https://search.bot.kernel.sh/.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory) read 2026-11-05 Last reviewed 2026-11-05