Compare / versions

Brave beta vs stable

Brave's beta channel next to stable on the fleet. Right now the beta is the older engine: Brave 1.100 beta is on Chromium 156, while 1.99 stable already moved to Chromium 157. TLS and HTTP/2 are identical, and five web APIs differ.

Brave

On the fleet, Brave runs as stable (1.99.55) and beta (1.100.44); there are no pinned versions. You'd expect the beta to be ahead, but today it is a major behind: stable 1.99.55 moved to Chromium 157.0.8103.39 (Brave 1.99 post), while beta 1.100.44 still runs Chromium 156.0.8078.74, measured the same night. Brave doesn't expose its own version number to pages, so the 1.99/1.100 numbers come from our catalog; everything else below was measured from inside a page and on the wire. How Brave differs from Chrome and Edge is covered in Chrome vs Brave and Edge vs Brave.

What differs, measured on the fleet

The rows highlighted in the table below. Every one of them follows from the Chromium base, not from Brave itself:

Only on stable (Chromium 157): CSS text-decoration-inset, Element.prototype.streamAppendHTML, WebTransport.reliability and the canvas srgb-linear colour space. These are the same four that Chrome 157 added (Chrome 157 post).
Only on beta (Chromium 156): Protected Audience (navigator.joinAdInterestGroup). Chromium 157 removed it, so stable no longer has it.
Present in both: the Chromium 156 features (CSS random(), scroll-snap-type: pair, rel=compression-dictionary) and the 155 ones (margin-trim, symbols(), the media-playback-while-not-visible policy).
Absent in both: the Topics API, fenced frames, Shared Storage, Attribution Reporting, Private Aggregation, requestStorageAccessFor and navigator.connection.

What a site sees

	Brave beta (1.100.44)	Brave stable (1.99.55)
User agent	`Chrome/156.0.0.0 Safari/537.36`: no Brave token.	`Chrome/157.0.0.0 Safari/537.36`.
Client hints	Brands `Not:A-Brand 8`, `Chromium 156`, `Brave 156`; full versions reduced to `156.0.0.0`.	Brands `Not-A.Brand 99`, `Brave 157`, `Chromium 157`: a different placeholder brand, and Brave listed before Chromium. Full versions `157.0.0.0`.
TLS and HTTP/2	JA4 `t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_806a8c22fdea`, 16 ciphers / 18 extensions, the same peetprint, HTTP/2 SETTINGS and header order (with `sec-gpc`). JA3 differs between connections because of GREASE.	Identical.
Fingerprint	SwiftShader WebGL, 7 plugins, PDF viewer, `en-US`, UTC, `webdriver` false.	The same.
Bot checks	bot.sannysoft.com: 1 of 57 flagged ("WebGL Renderer").	The same.
Plain HTTP	`http://ip-api.com/json` loaded over HTTP (200), no warning page.	The same. Chromium 157's HTTPS-First mode is switched off on every node for Brave.
Playwright	Main-world evaluate, console events, init scripts, routing, screenshots, PDF, device emulation and tracing all work.	The same.

For scraping and detection

Don't assume the beta is newer. Today channel: "beta" gives you an *older* engine than stable. If you want to test a site against the next Chromium, use Chrome's or Edge's beta channel (Chromium 158), not Brave's.
The version is declared three ways, and they must match: the reduced user agent, sec-ch-ua and navigator.userAgentData. Between 156 and 157 the placeholder brand and the brand order both change, so a brand list copied from one build looks wrong next to the other build's user agent.
Five feature probes tell the two builds apart. CSS.supports("text-decoration-inset", "1px") returns true only on stable, and typeof navigator.joinAdInterestGroup === "function" only on beta. A "Chrome/157" user agent that still has Protected Audience is running a 156 engine.
Nothing changes on the wire. JA4, peetprint, HTTP/2 and header order are the same on both channels, so network-level scoring treats them alike.
Farbled values are not channel differences. The canvas hash (5644a34b vs 904ca97a) and hardwareConcurrency (36 vs 17) differ in the table below because Brave randomizes them for each session (case 83). Two sessions on the same channel would differ just as much. Both sides reported the same screen (1366×768) and 8 GB of memory.

Configurable — by you, by us, by nobody

Item	Who controls it	How
Which build runs	You	`channel: "beta"` for 1.100, nothing for stable (1.99). Brave has no `version` pins on the fleet; the Brave page lists the current channels.
Which Chromium each channel is on	Brave	Set by Brave's releases. The order can flip while a new release rolls out, as it has today.
Shields, `sec-gpc`, farbling	Nobody, per channel	The same on both channels.
Fingerprint surface (UA, client hints, screen)	You, per context	`newContext` options, as on stable.
CDP access	You	`cdp: true` works on both channels (see the brave-cdp recipe).

Measured on the fleet (2026-11-08)

One headful launch of each channel on the production fleet, through the same proxy, probed from inside a page and via tls.peet.ws. Timings are a single sample. Canvas, cores and memory are farbled by Brave and change on every session.

Launch and cost

Single run; timings depend on the proxy and on fleet load.

	Brave beta	Brave stable
Launch body	{"headless":false,"channel":"beta"}	{"headless":false}
Threads used	2 (linux_headful)	2 (linux_headful)
Browser version	156.0.8078.74	157.0.8103.39
Launch request → browser ready	0.5 s	0.7 s
Playwright connect	0.1 s	0.0 s
Load example.com	1.5 s	1.6 s
Load tls.peet.ws/api/all	2.2 s	1.7 s

What the network sees

From tls.peet.ws/api/all, requested by the browser itself. JA3 hashes change between runs of the same build (GREASE), so compare JA4 and the HTTP/2 fingerprint.

	Brave beta	Brave stable
HTTP version	h2	h2
JA4	t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_806a8c22fdea	t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_806a8c22fdea
Peetprint hash	8f568b2a409b82d0ec24cb84bf3bc3fc	8f568b2a409b82d0ec24cb84bf3bc3fc
Akamai HTTP/2 fingerprint	1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144\|15663105\|0\|m,a,s,p	1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144\|15663105\|0\|m,a,s,p
Cipher suites / extensions	16 / 18	16 / 18
Header order (first 12)	method, authority, scheme, path, sec-ch-ua, sec-ch-ua-mobile, sec-ch-ua-platform, upgrade-insecure-requests, user-agent, accept, sec-gpc, sec-fetch-site	method, authority, scheme, path, sec-ch-ua, sec-ch-ua-mobile, sec-ch-ua-platform, upgrade-insecure-requests, user-agent, accept, sec-gpc, sec-fetch-site

What page scripts see

Read with page.evaluate on example.com. Cores and memory are the server's and vary between fleet nodes.

	Brave beta	Brave stable
navigator.userAgent	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/156.0.0.0 Safari/537.36	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/157.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
UA-CH brands	Not:A-Brand 8 · Chromium 156 · Brave 156	Not-A.Brand 99 · Brave 157 · Chromium 157
UA-CH full version list	Not:A-Brand 8.0.0.0 · Chromium 156.0.0.0 · Brave 156.0.0.0	Not-A.Brand 99.0.0.0 · Brave 157.0.0.0 · Chromium 157.0.0.0
navigator.platform / vendor	Linux x86_64 / Google Inc.	Linux x86_64 / Google Inc.
Languages	en-US	en-US
Timezone / locale	UTC / en-US	UTC / en-US
Screen (w×h×availW×availH×depth)	1366x768x1366x768x24	1366x768x1366x768x24
Window outer / inner / DPR	1281x722 / 1280x720 / 1	1281x723 / 1280x720 / 1
hardwareConcurrency / deviceMemory	36 / 8	17 / 8
WebGL vendor	Google Inc. (Google)	Google Inc. (Google)
WebGL renderer	ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)	ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)
WebGL version	WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)	WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)
WebGPU (navigator.gpu)	yes	yes
Canvas hash	5644a34b	904ca97a
navigator.webdriver	no	no
window.chrome / navigator.connection	yes / no	yes / no
Plugins / PDF viewer	7 / yes	7 / yes
Notification.permission / permissions.query	default / prompt	default / prompt

Web platform features

Presence probes; a user agent that claims one version while exposing another's features is a detectable inconsistency.

	Brave beta	Brave stable
`Iterator.prototype.includes` (new in Chrome 154)	yes	yes
`FontFace.width` (new in Chrome 154)	yes	yes
CSS `text-decoration-inset` (Chrome 157)	no	yes
`Iterator.prototype.join` (Chrome 153)	yes	yes
`Iterator.zip` (Chrome 153)	yes	yes
CSS `scroll-axis-lock` (Chrome 153)	no	no
`<camera>` element (Chrome 153)	yes	yes
`document.requestStorageAccessFor` (deprecated in 153)	no	no
Topics API (`document.browsingTopics`)	no	no
Protected Audience (`navigator.joinAdInterestGroup`)	yes	no
Shared Storage (`window.sharedStorage`)	no	no
Attribution Reporting (`window.attributionReporting`)	no	no
Private Aggregation	no	no
WebHID (`navigator.hid`)	yes	yes
CSS `margin-trim` (Chrome 155)	yes	yes
CSS `text-decoration-skip-spaces` (Chrome 155)	no	no
CSS `corner` shorthand (listed for Chrome 160)	no	no
CSS `symbols()` (Chrome 155)	yes	yes
`Element.streamAppendHTML` (Chrome 157)	no	yes
`WebTransport.reliability` (on stable from Chrome 157; listed for 158)	no	yes
`window.maximize()` — Additional Windowing Controls (Chrome 155)	no	no
Canvas `srgb-linear` colour space (on stable from Chrome 157)	no	yes
Permission policy `media-playback-while-not-visible` (Chrome 155)	yes	yes
CSS `random()` (Chrome 156)	yes	yes
CSS `scroll-snap-type: pair` (Chrome 156)	yes	yes
Fenced frames (`window.fence`)	no	no
`rel=compression-dictionary` (Chrome 156 updates)	yes	yes

bot.sannysoft.com

The classic headless-detection test page; what it marks red.

	Brave beta	Brave stable
Checks / failed	57 / 1	57 / 1
Failed checks	WebGL Renderer	WebGL Renderer

A plain-HTTP URL (http://ip-api.com/json)

Chrome 154 warns before loading insecure HTTP by default — does that reach an automated session?

	Brave beta	Brave stable
Final URL	http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status	http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status
HTTP status	200	200
Content loaded / warning page first	yes / no	yes / no

Playwright over the remote connection

Which client features work on this side.

	Brave beta	Brave stable
page.evaluate runs in the page's own world	yes	yes
addInitScript visible to page scripts	yes	yes
Console events	yes	yes
Request interception (page.route)	yes	yes
Screenshot	yes	yes
PDF	yes	yes
Mobile device emulation	yes	yes
Tracing	yes	yes

Rows where the two sides differ are highlighted. IP addresses are replaced with placeholders (203.0.113.x). The probe is compare/probe.mjs in our repository; the raw result is below.

Raw output

{
  "ran_at": "2026-11-08T02:05:53.339Z",
  "sides": [
    {
      "label": "Brave beta",
      "engine": "brave",
      "body": {
        "headless": false,
        "channel": "beta"
      },
      "launch": {
        "browser": "brave",
        "resource_class": "linux_headful",
        "weight": 2,
        "launch_ms": 534,
        "connect_ms": 142,
        "example_ms": 1456,
        "peet_ms": 2207
      },
      "network": {
        "http_version": "h2",
        "ja4": "t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_806a8c22fdea",
        "ja3_hash": "bbf9378f3d72016dc812ca0b3a73d882",
        "peetprint_hash": "8f568b2a409b82d0ec24cb84bf3bc3fc",
        "ciphers": 16,
        "extensions": 18,
        "akamai_h2": "1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144|15663105|0|m,a,s,p",
        "akamai_h2_hash": "52d84b11737d980aef856699f885ca86",
        "header_order": [
          "method",
          "authority",
          "scheme",
          "path",
          "sec-ch-ua",
          "sec-ch-ua-mobile",
          "sec-ch-ua-platform",
          "upgrade-insecure-requests",
          "user-agent",
          "accept",
          "sec-gpc",
          "sec-fetch-site"
        ]
      },
      "page": {
        "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/156.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
        "platform": "Linux x86_64",
        "vendor": "Google Inc.",
        "languages": [
          "en-US"
        ],
        "hardware_concurrency": 36,
        "device_memory": 8,
        "max_touch_points": 0,
        "webdriver": false,
        "plugins": 7,
        "pdf_viewer": true,
        "ua_data": {
          "brands": [
            {
              "brand": "Not:A-Brand",
              "version": "8"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "156"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Brave",
              "version": "156"
            }
          ],
          "mobile": false,
          "platform": "Linux",
          "architecture": "x86",
          "bitness": "64",
          "formFactors": [
            "Desktop"
          ],
          "fullVersionList": [
            {
              "brand": "Not:A-Brand",
              "version": "8.0.0.0"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "156.0.0.0"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Brave",
              "version": "156.0.0.0"
            }
          ],
          "model": "",
          "platformVersion": "",
          "uaFullVersion": "156.0.0.0",
          "wow64": false
        },
        "screen": "1366x768x1366x768x24",
        "window": {
          "outer": "1281x722",
          "inner": "1280x720",
          "dpr": 1
        },
        "timezone": "UTC",
        "locale": "en-US",
        "webgl": {
          "vendor": "Google Inc. (Google)",
          "renderer": "ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)",
          "version": "WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)"
        },
        "canvas_hash": "5644a34b",
        "webgpu": true,
        "chrome_object": true,
        "chrome_runtime": false,
        "notification_permission": "default",
        "notification_query": "prompt",
        "has_focus": true,
        "connection_api": false,
        "stack_read_by_debugger": false,
        "features": {
          "iterator_includes": true,
          "iterator_join": true,
          "iterator_zip": true,
          "fontface_width": true,
          "css_text_decoration_inset": false,
          "css_scroll_axis_lock": false,
          "websocket_options_bag": null,
          "camera_element": true,
          "topics_api": false,
          "protected_audience": true,
          "shared_storage": false,
          "attribution_reporting": false,
          "request_storage_access_for": false,
          "webhid": true,
          "private_aggregation": false,
          "css_margin_trim": true,
          "css_text_decoration_skip_spaces": false,
          "css_corner_shorthand": false,
          "css_symbols": true,
          "stream_append_html": false,
          "webtransport_reliability": false,
          "window_maximize": false,
          "canvas_srgb_linear": false,
          "policy_media_playback_while_not_visible": true,
          "css_random": true,
          "css_scroll_snap_pair": true,
          "fenced_frames": false,
          "compression_dictionary": true
        }
      },
      "page_main_world": null,
      "sannysoft": {
        "checks": 57,
        "failed": 1,
        "failed_names": [
          "WebGL Renderer"
        ],
        "passed": 29
      },
      "plain_http": {
        "final_url": "http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status",
        "status": 200,
        "title": "",
        "loaded": true,
        "warning_page": false,
        "page_text": "{\"status\":\"success\"}"
      },
      "playwright": {
        "evaluate_in_main_world": true,
        "console_events": true,
        "init_script": true,
        "route": true,
        "screenshot": true,
        "pdf": true,
        "mobile_emulation": true,
        "tracing": true
      },
      "browser_version": "156.0.8078.74"
    },
    {
      "label": "Brave stable",
      "engine": "brave",
      "body": {
        "headless": false
      },
      "launch": {
        "browser": "brave",
        "resource_class": "linux_headful",
        "weight": 2,
        "launch_ms": 691,
        "connect_ms": 19,
        "example_ms": 1600,
        "peet_ms": 1738
      },
      "network": {
        "http_version": "h2",
        "ja4": "t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_806a8c22fdea",
        "ja3_hash": "ac06e71a5304e5ff67d65517f739cda7",
        "peetprint_hash": "8f568b2a409b82d0ec24cb84bf3bc3fc",
        "ciphers": 16,
        "extensions": 18,
        "akamai_h2": "1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144|15663105|0|m,a,s,p",
        "akamai_h2_hash": "52d84b11737d980aef856699f885ca86",
        "header_order": [
          "method",
          "authority",
          "scheme",
          "path",
          "sec-ch-ua",
          "sec-ch-ua-mobile",
          "sec-ch-ua-platform",
          "upgrade-insecure-requests",
          "user-agent",
          "accept",
          "sec-gpc",
          "sec-fetch-site"
        ]
      },
      "page": {
        "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/157.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
        "platform": "Linux x86_64",
        "vendor": "Google Inc.",
        "languages": [
          "en-US"
        ],
        "hardware_concurrency": 17,
        "device_memory": 8,
        "max_touch_points": 0,
        "webdriver": false,
        "plugins": 7,
        "pdf_viewer": true,
        "ua_data": {
          "brands": [
            {
              "brand": "Not-A.Brand",
              "version": "99"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Brave",
              "version": "157"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "157"
            }
          ],
          "mobile": false,
          "platform": "Linux",
          "architecture": "x86",
          "bitness": "64",
          "formFactors": [
            "Desktop"
          ],
          "fullVersionList": [
            {
              "brand": "Not-A.Brand",
              "version": "99.0.0.0"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Brave",
              "version": "157.0.0.0"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "157.0.0.0"
            }
          ],
          "model": "",
          "platformVersion": "",
          "uaFullVersion": "157.0.0.0",
          "wow64": false
        },
        "screen": "1366x768x1366x768x24",
        "window": {
          "outer": "1281x723",
          "inner": "1280x720",
          "dpr": 1
        },
        "timezone": "UTC",
        "locale": "en-US",
        "webgl": {
          "vendor": "Google Inc. (Google)",
          "renderer": "ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)",
          "version": "WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)"
        },
        "canvas_hash": "904ca97a",
        "webgpu": true,
        "chrome_object": true,
        "chrome_runtime": false,
        "notification_permission": "default",
        "notification_query": "prompt",
        "has_focus": true,
        "connection_api": false,
        "stack_read_by_debugger": false,
        "features": {
          "iterator_includes": true,
          "iterator_join": true,
          "iterator_zip": true,
          "fontface_width": true,
          "css_text_decoration_inset": true,
          "css_scroll_axis_lock": false,
          "websocket_options_bag": null,
          "camera_element": true,
          "topics_api": false,
          "protected_audience": false,
          "shared_storage": false,
          "attribution_reporting": false,
          "request_storage_access_for": false,
          "webhid": true,
          "private_aggregation": false,
          "css_margin_trim": true,
          "css_text_decoration_skip_spaces": false,
          "css_corner_shorthand": false,
          "css_symbols": true,
          "stream_append_html": true,
          "webtransport_reliability": true,
          "window_maximize": false,
          "canvas_srgb_linear": true,
          "policy_media_playback_while_not_visible": true,
          "css_random": true,
          "css_scroll_snap_pair": true,
          "fenced_frames": false,
          "compression_dictionary": true
        }
      },
      "page_main_world": null,
      "sannysoft": {
        "checks": 57,
        "failed": 1,
        "failed_names": [
          "WebGL Renderer"
        ],
        "passed": 29
      },
      "plain_http": {
        "final_url": "http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status",
        "status": 200,
        "title": "",
        "loaded": true,
        "warning_page": false,
        "page_text": "{\"status\":\"success\"}"
      },
      "playwright": {
        "evaluate_in_main_world": true,
        "console_events": true,
        "init_script": true,
        "route": true,
        "screenshot": true,
        "pdf": true,
        "mobile_emulation": true,
        "tracing": true
      },
      "browser_version": "157.0.8103.39"
    }
  ]
}

Bottom line

Brave's beta channel isn't a preview of the next engine right now: 1.100 beta is a Chromium major behind 1.99 stable. Its TLS and HTTP/2 fingerprint is the same as stable's, but it has an older Chromium's API surface. That puts it in a smaller group of visitors without giving you anything new to test.

For scraping, stay on stable. A script that works on one Brave channel needs no change on the other, unless it relies on one of the five APIs listed above.