Comet Alternatives in 2026: Pick by How Much the Browser Should Do

The right Comet alternative depends on how much you want a browser to do without you. Brave with Leo mostly reads and answers. Gemini in Chrome adds an agent to the browser you may already use. Dia pulls in your work tools. Merlin, which we build, runs errands as separate tasks on a Mac.

Comet, Perplexity's browser, is a sensible default, so leaving it usually has a specific trigger: the agent turned out to need a paid plan, a security write-up made you uneasy about an AI inside your signed-in accounts, or you wanted your work apps in the answers. This page separates those triggers, shows what can be fixed inside Comet, and orders four options from mostly reading to running errands.

Where Comet is strong

Comet is a full Chromium browser with Perplexity's assistant built in, and it runs on Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. You can browse in it all day, which is not true of every tool on this page.

• Switching in is easy. Comet imports bookmarks, history and passwords from your old browser and supports most Chrome extensions.
• It works across your Google apps. With the connector on, the Comet Assistant can create calendar events and send email.
• It blocks a lot by itself. Perplexity's safety guide lists blocking for advertising scripts, fingerprinting attempts and unwanted third-party scripts.
• Companies can manage it. Comet for Enterprise covers MDM rollout, more than 500 browser policies, agent restrictions by site and audit logs on qualifying plans.

If you work on Windows or a phone, or you want one browser for everything, Comet is a better fit than Merlin.

What Comet costs, and what the free download leaves out

The Comet download is free, but browser agent queries are not part of Perplexity's Free plan. Perplexity released Comet for free in October 2025, and its plan comparison answers "No" for Free on the row labeled Browser Agent (Comet Assistant) Queries.

Some extras began on the top tier. When Perplexity announced them in October 2025, running many agent tasks in parallel was described as a Max feature and Email Assistant as available to Max subscribers. Check the current plan guide if one of those is why you're paying.

What sends people looking beyond Comet

The agent is the point, and it's paid

Someone who downloads Comet to hand off tasks will find the browser agent isn't on the Free plan. Pro or Max may be worth it, but using Comet's agent means paying for a Perplexity subscription.

An AI with access to signed-in accounts feels risky

Prompt injection means hiding instructions in a web page so an AI assistant obeys them. In August 2025, Brave, which makes a competing browser, described an attack on Comet in which hidden text in a Reddit comment could make the assistant fetch a user's email address and a one-time password from Gmail and send them to an attacker, and later said Perplexity hadn't fully fixed that kind of attack. Perplexity's own response from October 2025 lists its defenses and says prompt injection "remains an unsolved problem across the industry." Brave says much the same about its own agent, so this is a risk of the category, not of Comet alone.

You want to know where your data goes

Comet stores history, cookies and autofill data on your device unless you sync, and keeps saved passwords in your operating system's vault. AI queries still go to Perplexity's servers, even in Incognito. When a request uses page content or open tabs, Perplexity says that context is deleted automatically after 30 days at most, and is held until then to support your Library and query history, and that it doesn't sell the data. That is a clear policy, and whether it's enough depends on your work.

You want something narrower

Comet's own examples range widely, from comparing news coverage to ordering groceries. Some people would rather have a browser shaped around meetings and work apps, or a helper that takes errands without becoming their browser. And on Android, Perplexity notes that tasks run only while the app is open.

Try these settings before you leave Comet

Privacy concerns about Comet can often be reduced without switching browsers. Each of these takes a minute or two in the product itself:

1. Block your sensitive sites. Go to Settings → Privacy and security and list sites such as your bank under Block tasks on specific websites.
2. Limit the Comet Assistant. The same area lets you stop it reading history, navigating or interacting with sites, or turn it off entirely.
3. Delete Temporary Sessions. Sessions that used page or tab context appear in your Perplexity Library, where you can delete them early.
4. Use Incognito for browsing you don't want kept. It saves no history, cookies or cache, but AI queries still reach Perplexity.

Comet alternatives, from mostly reading to running errands

Brave with Leo: an assistant that keeps little

Brave with Leo fits people who want page summaries and answers with the least data trail. Brave's Leo page says no account is needed, chats aren't kept, shared or used for training, and history stays on your device. Leo runs in Brave on macOS, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS, with a free tier and Leo Premium at $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year.

The trade-off is agent work. Brave's AI browsing is an opt-in feature in early testing behind a browser flag, running in an isolated profile with no access to your normal logins. Brave calls it a work in progress. Pick Brave if reading and privacy matter more than delegation.

Gemini in Chrome: no new browser to learn

Gemini in Chrome fits anyone who likes their Chrome setup and mostly wants an assistant on top. Google's overview describes summaries, comparisons across open tabs, help inside Google apps, and spoken conversation through Gemini Live. It runs on desktop Chrome for Mac, Windows and Chromebook Plus, requires signing in to Chrome, and is rolling out by region.

Auto browse, Google's version of Comet's agent, is in preview for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the US. Google publishes those plans by country. US subscribers to those plans should try this before moving anywhere. For the wider assistant, see our guides to what Gemini is and connecting it to your apps.

Dia: a browser built around the workday

Dia, from The Browser Company, now part of Atlassian, fits people whose questions are about their own work, and it sits here for that reach, not for its web agent. Dia's site describes a Morning Brief from your calendar and inbox, reports that pull from Slack, Notion and Teams, meeting pages that gather agendas and notes, and separate profiles for work and personal use. It runs on macOS and Windows, with no phone version listed there.

Dia's pricing has a free browser with no AI, Better Answers at $10 a month and Better Days at $100 a month, plus a 14-day trial without a card. The page dates the paid rollout for most new Mac users from August 17 and says Windows isn't affected yet. Dia limits its agent more tightly than Comet: its security page says Dia "won't let agentic mode navigate to other websites" and keeps irreversible actions, such as a new calendar event, in draft until you act. By default Dia uses some content data to improve the product, for 30 days and not tied to your account, and you can turn that off in Settings.

Merlin: errands that run beside your browser

Merlin is our product, so read this with that in mind. It's a Mac app, not a replacement for your everyday browser: you keep browsing where you browse, and from Merlin's Chat you hand over a booking, an order, a check-in, a cancellation or a form. It works in its own built-in browser, which starts with none of your logins until you bring over the sign-in for a site, and you can watch each step, redirect it mid-task or stop it.

Before paying, booking, sending, submitting or deleting, Merlin shows a card with what the page shows, including the total, and waits for your tap. Merlin's docs describe this confirmation step as an instruction it follows, not a lock on every click. The hard limits are a switch that stops and blocks all browser tasks, and a list of sites you block. Merlin doesn't ask for your password or card number; a site that needs a password hands the page back to you. Since Merlin reads your connected Gmail, a task can start from an email, and an order it places can be tracked in a panel beside your chat. On data, our privacy policy rules out selling personal information, yet it names no retention period for email and is silent on AI training.

The limits matter. Setup requires a Mac plus a Gmail and Google Calendar connection, and browser tasks run only in the desktop app, so Windows and phone users are out. A task pauses when your Mac sleeps. Comet's extension support and all-day browsing aren't what Merlin is for. On Merlin's pricing page, the free plan gives 5,000 credits a month and the Pro plan costs $29 monthly or $278 a year; a long browser task uses more credits than a quick answer, since each is charged by what it actually costs, so there's no fixed number of tasks per plan. For where this kind of delegation works and doesn't, see our piece on which jobs to delegate first.

Comet vs. Brave, Gemini in Chrome, Dia and Merlin

We took every cell from that vendor's site in November 2026. Where a vendor doesn't say, the cell tells you.

Which one fits your situation

Moving out of Comet

1. Check the new browser's import menu for Comet by name. Don't assume it's listed. Merlin's sign-in import, for one, covers Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Vivaldi, Chromium and Firefox, not Comet, so sites you only use in Comet need a fresh sign-in inside Merlin.
2. Save your passwords first. Comet keeps them in your operating system's vault and says they stay on the device unless you export or sync them, so do one of those before you remove it.
3. Cancel Perplexity separately. Pro and Max are Perplexity subscriptions, managed from your account, so check them if you only paid for Comet's agent.
4. Clear what's left. Perplexity notes you can clear browsing data, passwords, sign-ins and payment details in Comet's settings, and delete anything you no longer want in your Perplexity Library.