The private Aside alternative for AI agents

Bring your own AI agent. Donut gives each account its own profile, fingerprint and proxy, and the open-source app sends no telemetry.

Download Donut Browser

The Aside side shows its documented settings, which have no fingerprint or proxy control per profile. Read October 14, 2026.

AI model: Bring your own
App telemetry: None
Account: Not needed
App licence: AGPL-3.0

What moves when you leave Aside

Logins move as cookie files, and your own agent connects to Donut. Hosted models and memory stay with Aside.

Moves across Cookies and logins Donut imports JSON, Netscape and Playwright storage-state files into any profile.
Moves across Bookmarks and history Import the Chrome, Brave or Edge profiles you started from. Profile import is free on every plan.
Connects Your AI agent Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and other clients connect over remote MCP, or over CDP on your own machine.
Stays behind Hosted models and memory Donut has no built-in model or memory. Your agent keeps its own context.

Switch in three steps

Today Install Donut Browser. Create one profile per account, give each profile its own proxy, and import its cookies.
This week Connect your agent. On Solo and up, the app writes the remote MCP config for your client in one click; browser control needs Pro. On Pro you can also launch profiles through the local API and drive them with Playwright over CDP.
Before you cancel Run your usual tasks in Donut for a few days. Then cancel Aside.

Aside vs Donut Browser

Each Aside cell restates its own website, read on October 14, 2026. The numbers point to the sources below.

Topic	Donut Browser	Aside
Model providers	Donut has no built-in model and sends nothing to model providers. Your agent uses the provider you choose.	With hosted models, the provider receives the task context: prompts, tool results, selected browser snapshots, screenshots and files. Local models through Ollama or LM Studio are also supported. 1 2
App analytics	None. The desktop app has no telemetry, analytics or crash reporting.	On by default. With analytics on, PostHog receives product events with your email address, plan, chosen model and device model. 1 3
Account	Not needed for the app. Remote MCP and cloud sync need a paid plan and an account.	Required before you start. 4
Licence to your content	The terms of service claim no licence to your content. Profiles stay on your disk, and optional sync is end-to-end encrypted.	A worldwide, sublicensable, transferable licence to your prompts, browser context and page content, including to develop and improve the service. No training by default. Data is kept as long as Aside reasonably needs it. 1 5
Fingerprint per profile	Each profile has its own fingerprint, spoofed in the engine's C++ code. Editing fingerprints and other-OS fingerprints need Pro.	No fingerprint setting is documented. Profiles are Chromium profiles in one browser, so they share one device fingerprint. 2 3
Proxy per profile	Each profile has its own HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4, SOCKS5 or WireGuard route, with WebRTC leak protection and DNS through that route.	No proxy setting is documented. Profiles use the computer's own connection and IP address. 3
Source code	The app (profile manager, local API, MCP tooling, sync server) is AGPL-3.0 on GitHub. The Wayfern engine is proprietary.	Closed. The terms forbid reverse engineering, decompiling and extracting the source code. 5
Platforms	macOS, Windows and Linux.	macOS and Windows. 6
Price	Free with unlimited local profiles and no MCP. Solo at $29 a month adds remote MCP. Pro at $99 a month adds browser control.	Free with 500 credits a month, Pro at $20 a month, Max at $200 a month, Enterprise on request. 7

What Aside says about your data

Quoted from Aside's own pages, read October 14, 2026. The homepage and section 4 of the privacy policy describe model providers differently.

Tasks, memory, and data stay on your device. Nothing is shared with LLM providers.

Homepage 8
Hosted AI model providers receive the model-visible context needed to run the task.

Privacy policy, section 4 1
Analytics sharing defaults to on.

Help centre, privacy page 3
You grant Aside a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, reproduce, modify, display, transmit, process, analyze, and otherwise use User Content and Output so we can provide, maintain, secure, develop, improve, and enforce the Services.

Terms, section 6 5

Sources

1 aside.com/policy/privacy read October 14, 2026
2 docs.aside.com/changelog/components read October 14, 2026
3 docs.aside.com/help/privacy read October 14, 2026
4 docs.aside.com/help/get-started read October 14, 2026
5 aside.com/policy/terms read October 14, 2026
6 aside.com/download read October 14, 2026
7 aside.com/pricing read October 14, 2026
8 aside.com read October 14, 2026
9 docs.aside.com/help/ai read October 14, 2026
10 aside.com/features/memory read October 14, 2026

When Aside is the better choice

Real limits of Donut Browser. If one of these describes your work, stay where you are.

You want a browser with a built-in hosted model and memory. Aside includes models with its plans and turns your browsing history into memory. Donut has no model and no memory, so you bring your own agent. 9 10
You want the lowest price for an agent. Aside Pro costs $20 a month. In Donut, agent tools start with Solo at $29 a month, and browser control needs Pro at $99. 7
You want to run the agent from Slack, Telegram or Discord. Aside has remote-control channels for them. Donut has no chat channels; you answer the agent in the app. 2
You use one account per site and need no separate identities. Per-profile fingerprints and proxies are setup you will not use.

Common questions

Is there a private alternative to Aside for AI agents?

Donut Browser is one. The desktop app has no telemetry, needs no account and contains no AI model, so it sends nothing to model providers. You bring your own agent, and each account gets its own profile, fingerprint and proxy.

Does Donut Browser include an AI model?

No. You bring your own agent, such as Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, VS Code or Zed. The app writes the MCP config for 22 clients in one click. Your agent's model provider sees what the agent reads, under that provider's terms.

Does my agent's traffic pass through Donut's servers?

Over remote MCP, yes. Each call goes through Donut's relay at api.donutbrowser.com, and the relay is not end-to-end encrypted. The desktop app opens an outgoing connection, so no port is open on your computer. Tools that read local files or export secrets are refused, and proxy passwords are redacted. To keep traffic on your computer, launch profiles through the local API and connect Playwright over CDP (Pro).

Is Donut Browser free for AI agents?

No. The app and unlimited local profiles are free, but the free plan has no MCP. Solo at $29 a month adds remote MCP for profiles, proxies and human-in-the-loop tools. Browser control (launch, navigate, click, type, read pages) starts with Pro at $99 a month.

Can I move my Aside logins to Donut Browser?

Logins move as cookie files. Donut imports JSON, Netscape and Playwright storage-state files into each profile. Profile import from Chrome, Brave, Edge and other Chromium-family browsers is free and brings bookmarks and history. Aside's memory, routines and hosted models do not move.

Why does each account need its own fingerprint and proxy?

Sites can link accounts that share a device fingerprint and an IP address. In Donut, each profile has its own fingerprint and its own proxy or VPN, with time zone and language matched to the exit IP. No tool can promise that a site will not detect automation.

Do I need an account to use Donut Browser?

Not for the app. Profiles are folders on your disk. You sign in to buy a plan, to use remote MCP or to turn on cloud sync.