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Decodo vs Kernel

Kernel scores higher on the AgentReady, 89/100 against 53/100. They differ on 13 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Decodo. AI-Ready Proxy & Scraping Solutions.

Kernel. Kernel provides crazy fast, open source browser infrastructure for AI agents to access the internet.

Where Kernel is ahead

Kernel passes public docs discoverable and llms-full.txt / full agent docs, and Decodo does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented and limits / constraints documented. Decodo misses those.

And on adopt, programmatic credential creation. Decodo misses it.

Finally, on operate, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, rate-limit behavior predictable and agent compatibility verified. Decodo misses those.

What neither does

Both fail authentication documented, no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart, idempotency support. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.

Score, pillar by pillar

The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.

Discover. Kernel leads 100 to 80. Decodo misses public docs discoverable, llms-full.txt / full agent docs; Kernel misses nothing.

Understand is whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it. Kernel leads 92 to 23. Decodo misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented; Kernel misses authentication documented.

Adopt. Kernel leads 71 to 60. Decodo misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart; Kernel misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart.

Operate. Kernel leads 94 to 47. Decodo misses machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified; Kernel misses idempotency support.

Pricing

Decodo starts at $2/GB with no free tier. Kernel starts at $0/mo and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

Kernel clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: Decodo and Kernel. Alternatives to each: Decodo, Kernel.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["decodo", "kernel"]}