AI BriefingHow to Run Firecracker VMs Inside EC2 to Start Browsers in Under 1 Second
Key point
Browser Use leveraged Firecracker microVMs to cut browser session costs by 66% and increase launch speed.
Details
Browser Use Cloud rebuilt its infrastructure to solve three challenges of browser sessions: security isolation, fast startup, and low cost.
Previously, they used Unikraft, but autoscaling was difficult during traffic spikes, causing operational issues. To solve this, they introduced Firecracker microVM to run each browser session in an isolated, ultra-lightweight virtual machine.
The key technical achievements are as follows:
- Cost reduction: Reduced the cost per browser hour from $0.06 to $0.02, a roughly 66% reduction.
- Fast startup speed: Reduced VM cold start time to under 400ms, launching browser sessions within 1 second.
- Efficient infrastructure: Optimized to work efficiently on regular EC2 (Nested VM) environments rather than bare-metal, minimizing infrastructure costs.
- Autoscaling: Automatically adjusts VM resources according to browser demand through a self-built Control Plane.
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