Using cloud browser infrastructure is a great way to scale your QA processes as your app, and by extension your test suite, grows. Cloud browser infrastructure allows you to control browsers on cloud servers remotely, so that running larger test suites is more time and resource-efficient.
Here is precisely what you need to know about cloud browser infrastructure, and how it helps you scale automated browser testing.
Summary: What It Is and Why Use It For Automated Testing
Cloud browser infrastructure provides the tools you need to scale testing quickly and effectively. Browser farms, autoscaling functionality, and session isolation accelerate test execution while ensuring that you avoid hidden dependencies and accidental shared state issues. Some automated testing tools like Momentic offer hosted infrastructure that saves on maintenance/setup costs compared to running your own.
Here’s a quick summary of the key concepts you need to understand:
| Concept | What it means | Why it matters for automated testing | How it helps you scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud browser infrastructure | Browsers running on remote cloud servers that can be controlled programmatically | Removes the need to run browser sessions on your own machines | Provides the compute, browser sessions, networking and management needed to run large test suites |
| Browser farms | A pool of browser sessions that can run concurrently | Allows multiple tests to execute at the same time instead of sequentially | Increases testing throughput and reduces the time required to run large suites |
| Autoscaling | Automatically provisioning or removing browser/compute capacity based on demand | Ensures you have enough capacity when test volume increases without keeping excess capacity running | Lets browser capacity grow and shrink with your test workload |
| Session isolation | Keeping browser sessions and their state separate from one another | Prevents cookies, authentication, local storage, and other state from one test affecting another | Makes parallel testing more reliable and ensures test results reflect the functionality being tested |
| Browser context isolation | Multiple independent browser contexts within a browser process | Provides lightweight separation between tests | Offers efficient isolation where strong process-level separation isn't required |
| Browser process isolation | Giving each test its own browser process | Provides stronger separation between concurrent tests | Improves reliability at the cost of additional resources |
| Container isolation | Running a browser/test inside its own container | Provides a stronger boundary between test environments | Makes it easier to run many independent browser sessions reliably |
What Is Cloud Browser Infrastructure?
Cloud browser infrastructure is a service that runs web browsers on remote servers in the cloud instead of on your own computer. In layman’s terms, it’s a browser that can be controlled remotely, through the internet.
How it works: the app you are using sends a command to a cloud browser server. The cloud service starts a browser, which creates an isolated session for the request via a container, virtual machine, or other isolated environment. Your application can then send commands to that browser so that it interacts with and renders the website and your app can inspect what’s on the page.
So, the workflow goes:
Your app → Cloud browser server → Browser → Website → Analysis
Cloud browser services aren’t limited in the commands they can execute. Your app can interact with a website in any way a human normally would; opening webpages, filling in forms, downloading files, clicking buttons, and more.
Why Use Cloud Browser Infrastructure?
Cloud browser infrastructure makes automation at scale much easier than running those sessions by yourself. If you need to operate 1,000 browser sessions simultaneously, cloud browser infrastructure is a better bet than your laptop, because it provides the servers, networking, browser instances, isolation, and scaling to do so successfully.
This is essential if you want to:
- Run large test suites for websites and web apps
- Allow an AI agent to operate autonomously
- Perform data collection from websites at scale
Obviously, this makes it integral to automated testing. Agentic QA tools in particular (including Momentic) rely on it as a cornerstone of their autonomous testing capabilities.
How Does Cloud Browser Infrastructure Work?
Cloud browser infrastructure makes deterministic test suites easier to scale. It is also necessary for agentic testing, because it provides the environment in which an agent can actually see and interact with websites , rather than merely making API calls.
A cloud browser platform (whether being used for testing or anything else) manages several layers:
1. Browser runtime
Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, etc.
2. Compute
Servers/containers that run the browsers.
3. Isolation
Keeping one customer's browser session separate from another's.
4. Networking
Internet connectivity, proxies, IP management, DNS, etc.
5. Session management
Starting, pausing, reconnecting to, and terminating browser sessions.
6. Automation interface
Usually something like Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, or a remote browser API.
7. Autoscaling
Automatically creating more browser instances when demand increases.
How Does Cloud Browser Architecture Scale Automated Browser Testing?
Browser Farms Scale The Number of Browsers Available Concurrently
If your CI pipeline has 500 tests to run, queueing them one after the other would take a long time. A browser farm provides lots of browser sessions available at once, so you can test in parallel and accelerate test execution.
Browser farms can run thousands of browser sessions at the same time, making it much easier for teams with large test suites to execute them in reasonable timeframes.
You Can Grow and Shrink Browser Farms Using Autoscaling
You don’t need thousands of browsers available all the time. Autoscaling allows you to create new browser sessions as and when you need them for optimal efficiency.
So, when your 2 a.m CI build needs to launch 2,500 tests, autoscaling monitors demand and provisions more computing resources when needed. These are then removed when demand subsides.
This is particularly useful for teams testing with AI , because AI has the potential to generate far more test scenarios in the same timeframe than traditional scripted test suites. Autoscaling provides the computing capacity to execute them concurrently.
Session Isolation Keeps Tests From Accidentally Affecting Each Other
As you scale your test suite and run more tests in parallel, the risk that accidental shared states from some tests affect the result of others increases significantly.
Let’s say you’ve got a test suite with two scenarios:
1. A new user signs up
2. An existing user logs in
If you run these on the same session, the first test might leave the browser authenticated so the second passes without validating the login flow. Or, during parallel testing , one test can change a state that others rely on for accurate results.
Session isolation minimizes this possibility, so that you can be sure that results reflect the functionality you are testing, rather than any accidental hidden dependencies in your testing suite.
What Does Browser Session Isolation Look Like?
There are several levels of isolation, which teams can use depending on how strong separation between sessions needs to be.
- Browser context isolation: Multiple independent contexts can exist within a browser process. This is useful if you need lightweight isolation that is easy to create.
- Browser process isolation: Each test gets its own Chrome/Chromium process. Separation is stronger, but more resource-intensive.
- Container isolation: Each test/browser runs inside its own container.
Browser Farms, Autoscaling, and Isolation For AI Testing
AI testing agents don’t necessarily manage the infrastructure itself. An agent decides what should be tested and the actions to take based on its understanding of intent. The infrastructure handles how and where the test runs.
Testing with AI agents is often more dynamic than traditional automation. You’ll probably have a process that looks something like:
AI agent → browser → website → observe → reason → act → observe → reason → result
This creates a demand for browser environments to be more dynamic. AI agents may need to create new sessions, navigate unpredictability, retry actions, or generate additional tests, for example. The infrastructure needs to be able to rapidly provision isolated browsers and scale them up and down as a result.
How Momentic Assists With Dynamic Browser Needs
Momentic is an agentic AI testing tool that offers the infrastructure you need to test at scale. You have the option of running tests locally or in CI (and sorting the infrastructure yourself) or using Momentic’s CLI to run tests on hosted infrastructure.
The CLI offers native support for parallel testing, and each test starts in its own browser instance. For added efficiency, Momentic’s step cache/auto-healing mechanism can replay cached resolutions without the need for another LLM call; this can reduce LLM inference and related computational costs.
Scale Your Testing Effortlessly With Momentic
“Momentic helps us validate real product behavior without relying on the narrow, machine-based workflows we had before. Now we focus only on real regressions rather than sifting through flakes.”
The team behind Pocus’ sales intelligence platform was struggling to scale their testing operations due to the maintenance burden flaky Playwright tests placed on their engineers.
After implementing Momentic, the team reclaimed significant engineering hours, while experiencing a 20x reduction in test flakiness. They now validate 100% of production deployments with Momentic before release, without facing any significant slowdowns from doing so.
Looking for testing processes that scale? Get in touch
FAQs
- What is cloud browser infrastructure?
Cloud browser infrastructure runs web browsers on remote cloud servers, allowing applications and testing tools to control browser sessions programmatically. This makes it easier to run large numbers of automated browser tests without managing the underlying browser infrastructure yourself. - Why is cloud browser infrastructure useful for automated testing?
Cloud browser infrastructure makes it possible to run browser tests concurrently across many browser sessions. This can significantly reduce test execution times while providing the compute, networking, session management and isolation needed to run large test suites reliably. - What is a browser farm?
A browser farm is a collection of browser sessions that can be used to run tests concurrently. Instead of running a large test suite sequentially on one browser, a browser farm allows multiple tests to run at the same time, increasing testing throughput. - What is autoscaling in cloud browser infrastructure?
Autoscaling automatically increases or decreases browser and compute capacity based on demand. This means you can provision more browser sessions when a large test suite needs to run and reduce capacity when demand falls, avoiding the need to maintain maximum capacity at all times. - Why is browser session isolation important for automated testing?
Session isolation prevents one test from affecting another through shared browser state such as cookies, authentication, local storage, or other session data. This is particularly important when running tests in parallel, as it helps ensure that test results reflect the functionality being tested rather than accidental dependencies between tests. - How does cloud browser infrastructure support AI testing?
AI testing agents need a browser environment in which they can interact with websites, observe the results and adapt their actions. Cloud browser infrastructure provides the browser sessions and computing capacity required to run these tests, while features such as parallel execution, autoscaling and isolation help support larger and more dynamic AI testing workloads. - Does cloud browser infrastructure reduce the cost of automated testing?
It can. Cloud browser infrastructure can reduce the operational overhead of managing browser environments yourself and allows computing resources to scale with demand. However, the overall cost depends on factors such as the number of tests, browser sessions, execution time and infrastructure provider. - How does Momentic use cloud browser infrastructure?
Momentic allows teams to run AI-powered browser tests locally, in CI, or via its CLI. The CLI supports parallel test execution and separate browser instances for tests. Its step cache and auto-healing capabilities can also reduce unnecessary LLM calls, lowering AI inference and associated computational costs.