Compare / browsers

Opera vs Chrome

Opera 137 runs on Chromium 153, two majors behind Chrome 155, and names itself everywhere — OPR in the user agent, Opera in the client hints — while its TLS, HTTP/2 and header order are byte-for-byte Chrome's. What that means for driving it and for how sites see it.

Opera Google Chrome

Opera is a Chromium browser with its own release train: Opera 137 stable on the fleet is built on Chromium 153.0.8010.55, while Chrome stable is 155.0.8059.39 — measured the same night. Both run headful by default on the fleet and cost the same two threads. The question for a scraper is whether a less common Chromium brand is worth being two versions behind, and whether Opera hides that it's Opera (it doesn't).

As a developer: driving them

	Opera	Google Chrome
Version on the fleet	Opera 137 stable on Chromium 153; a `developer` channel (138) for the next release (`beta` is a deprecated alias for it). No pinned majors.	Chrome 155 stable on Chromium 155, with `beta` (156) and `dev` (157) channels and pinned previous majors (`version`).
Launch options	`channel`, `cdp`, `live_view`, `screen_size`, `keep_alive`, `record`.	The same plus `version` for pinned majors.
Playwright features	Main-world evaluate, console events, init scripts, routing, screenshots, PDF, device emulation, tracing — all work (measured).	The same list, all working (measured).
CDP	`"cdp": true` gives a `cdpUrl`. Headless over CDP, open pages in `browser.newContext()`: Opera doesn't render in its default context there, so `keep_alive` over CDP needs headful Opera or `wsUrl`.	`"cdp": true` works in the default context too, headless or headful.
Web platform	Chromium 153: no `Iterator.prototype.includes`, no `FontFace` width descriptor, no CSS `margin-trim` or `@counter-style symbols()`, no `media-playback-while-not-visible` policy (measured). `document.requestStorageAccessFor` is exposed.	Chromium 155: all of the above present; `requestStorageAccessFor` not exposed (measured).

As a scraper: what the site sees

	Opera	Google Chrome
User agent	`Chrome/153.0.0.0 … Safari/537.36 OPR/137.0.0.0` — Opera names itself with the `OPR/` token.	`Chrome/155.0.0.0 … Safari/537.36`.
Client hints	Brands `Opera 137`, `Chromium 153`; full versions `137.0.6036.39` and `153.0.8010.55`.	Brands `Google Chrome 155`, `Chromium 155`; full version `155.0.8059.39`.
TLS	JA4 `t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_cb7bf5808d99`, 16 ciphers, 19 extensions.	Identical JA4 and peetprint (JA3 differs only by GREASE ordering per connection).
HTTP/2 and headers	Chromium's SETTINGS and WINDOW_UPDATE; header order `sec-ch-ua` … `user-agent`, `accept`, `sec-fetch-*`.	Identical — no extra header like Brave's `sec-gpc`.
Fingerprint values	The machine's own (cores, memory, screen); canvas hash `f5a94624`, SwiftShader WebGL, 5 plugins, `en-US, en`.	The same canvas hash, WebGL, plugins and languages — Opera adds no fingerprint randomisation.
Bot checks	bot.sannysoft.com: only "WebGL Renderer" flagged (SwiftShader on a GPU-less server).	The same single flag.

Which to pick

Chrome for the most common visitor on the web, the newest stable engine, beta/dev channels and pinned majors for regression work.
Opera when a site treats Chrome traffic specially and you want a different, real brand with Chrome's network fingerprint — knowing it says "Opera" in both the user agent and the client hints, and its engine is two Chromium majors behind.
Don't use Opera to look older or newer than you are: the version mix (Opera 137 on Chromium 153) is exactly what real Opera users send, so it stays consistent — but code written for Chromium 155 features may not run.

Measured on the fleet (2026-10-12)

One headful launch of each through the same proxy, probed from inside a page and via tls.peet.ws.

Launch and cost

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

	Opera	Google Chrome
Launch body	{"headless":false}	{"headless":false}
Threads used	2 (linux_headful)	2 (linux_headful)
Browser version	153.0.8010.55	155.0.8059.39
Launch request → browser ready	2.1 s	4.2 s
Playwright connect	0.4 s	0.0 s
Load example.com	0.7 s	1.5 s
Load tls.peet.ws/api/all	6.2 s	1.5 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.

	Opera	Google Chrome
HTTP version	h2	h2
JA4	t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_cb7bf5808d99	t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_cb7bf5808d99
Peetprint hash	fc97c1cdfb1409c9a9326c1b726d1dee	fc97c1cdfb1409c9a9326c1b726d1dee
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 / 19	16 / 19
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-fetch-site, sec-fetch-mode	method, authority, scheme, path, sec-ch-ua, sec-ch-ua-mobile, sec-ch-ua-platform, upgrade-insecure-requests, user-agent, accept, sec-fetch-site, sec-fetch-mode

What page scripts see

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

	Opera	Google Chrome
navigator.userAgent	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/153.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 OPR/137.0.0.0	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
UA-CH brands	Opera 137 · Not_A Brand 8 · Chromium 153	Google Chrome 155 · Chromium 155 · Not(A:Brand 24
UA-CH full version list	Opera 137.0.6036.39 · Not_A Brand 8.0.0.0 · Chromium 153.0.8010.55	Google Chrome 155.0.8059.39 · Chromium 155.0.8059.39 · Not(A:Brand 24.0.0.0
navigator.platform / vendor	Linux x86_64 / Google Inc.	Linux x86_64 / Google Inc.
Languages	en-US, en	en-US, en
Timezone / locale	UTC / en-US	UTC / en-US
Screen (w×h×availW×availH×depth)	1280x720x1280x720x24	1280x720x1280x720x24
Window outer / inner / DPR	1288x805 / 1280x720 / 1	1288x805 / 1280x720 / 1
hardwareConcurrency / deviceMemory	48 / 32	64 / 32
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	f5a94624	f5a94624
navigator.webdriver	no	no
window.chrome / navigator.connection	yes / yes	yes / yes
Plugins / PDF viewer	5 / yes	5 / 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.

	Opera	Google Chrome
`Iterator.prototype.includes` (new in Chrome 154)	no	yes
`FontFace.width` (new in Chrome 154)	no	yes
CSS `text-decoration-inset` (new in Chrome 154)	no	no
`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)	yes	no
Topics API (`document.browsingTopics`)	yes	yes
Protected Audience (`navigator.joinAdInterestGroup`)	yes	yes
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)	no	yes
CSS `text-decoration-skip-spaces` (Chrome 155)	no	no
CSS `corner` shorthand (Chrome 155)	no	no
CSS `symbols()` (Chrome 155)	no	yes
`Element.streamAppendHTML` (Chrome 155)	no	no
`WebTransport.reliability` (Chrome 155)	no	no
`window.maximize()` — Additional Windowing Controls (Chrome 155)	no	no
Canvas `srgb-linear` colour space (Chrome 155)	no	no
Permission policy `media-playback-while-not-visible` (Chrome 155)	no	yes
CSS `random()` (Chrome 156)	no	no
CSS `scroll-snap-type: pair` (Chrome 156)	no	no
Fenced frames (`window.fence`) — removal starts in 157	yes	yes
`rel=compression-dictionary` (Chrome 156 updates)	yes	yes

bot.sannysoft.com

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

	Opera	Google Chrome
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?

	Opera	Google Chrome
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.

	Opera	Google Chrome
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": "2026-10-12T01:03:45.539Z",
  "sides": [
    {
      "label": "Opera",
      "engine": "opera",
      "body": {
        "headless": false
      },
      "launch": {
        "browser": "opera",
        "resource_class": "linux_headful",
        "weight": 2,
        "launch_ms": 2106,
        "connect_ms": 440,
        "example_ms": 653,
        "peet_ms": 6222
      },
      "network": {
        "http_version": "h2",
        "ja4": "t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_cb7bf5808d99",
        "ja3_hash": "7d2c81bbd66b4017d9840b063392e8f5",
        "peetprint_hash": "fc97c1cdfb1409c9a9326c1b726d1dee",
        "ciphers": 16,
        "extensions": 19,
        "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-fetch-site",
          "sec-fetch-mode"
        ]
      },
      "page": {
        "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/153.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 OPR/137.0.0.0",
        "platform": "Linux x86_64",
        "vendor": "Google Inc.",
        "languages": [
          "en-US",
          "en"
        ],
        "hardware_concurrency": 48,
        "device_memory": 32,
        "max_touch_points": 0,
        "webdriver": false,
        "plugins": 5,
        "pdf_viewer": true,
        "ua_data": {
          "brands": [
            {
              "brand": "Opera",
              "version": "137"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not_A Brand",
              "version": "8"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "153"
            }
          ],
          "mobile": false,
          "platform": "Linux",
          "architecture": "x86",
          "bitness": "64",
          "formFactors": [
            "Desktop"
          ],
          "fullVersionList": [
            {
              "brand": "Opera",
              "version": "137.0.6036.39"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not_A Brand",
              "version": "8.0.0.0"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "153.0.8010.55"
            }
          ],
          "model": "",
          "platformVersion": "",
          "uaFullVersion": "137.0.6036.39",
          "wow64": false
        },
        "screen": "1280x720x1280x720x24",
        "window": {
          "outer": "1288x805",
          "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": "f5a94624",
        "webgpu": true,
        "chrome_object": true,
        "chrome_runtime": false,
        "notification_permission": "default",
        "notification_query": "prompt",
        "has_focus": true,
        "connection_api": true,
        "stack_read_by_debugger": false,
        "features": {
          "iterator_includes": false,
          "iterator_join": true,
          "iterator_zip": true,
          "fontface_width": false,
          "css_text_decoration_inset": false,
          "css_scroll_axis_lock": false,
          "websocket_options_bag": null,
          "camera_element": true,
          "topics_api": true,
          "protected_audience": true,
          "shared_storage": false,
          "attribution_reporting": false,
          "request_storage_access_for": true,
          "webhid": true,
          "private_aggregation": false,
          "css_margin_trim": false,
          "css_text_decoration_skip_spaces": false,
          "css_corner_shorthand": false,
          "css_symbols": false,
          "stream_append_html": false,
          "webtransport_reliability": false,
          "window_maximize": false,
          "canvas_srgb_linear": false,
          "policy_media_playback_while_not_visible": false,
          "css_random": false,
          "css_scroll_snap_pair": false,
          "fenced_frames": true,
          "compression_dictionary": true
        }
      },
      "page_main_world": null,
      "sannysoft": {
        "checks": 57,
        "failed": 1,
        "failed_names": [
          "WebGL Renderer"
        ],
        "passed": 30
      },
      "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": "153.0.8010.55"
    },
    {
      "label": "Google Chrome",
      "engine": "chrome",
      "body": {
        "headless": false
      },
      "launch": {
        "browser": "chrome",
        "resource_class": "linux_headful",
        "weight": 2,
        "launch_ms": 4201,
        "connect_ms": 17,
        "example_ms": 1472,
        "peet_ms": 1465
      },
      "network": {
        "http_version": "h2",
        "ja4": "t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_cb7bf5808d99",
        "ja3_hash": "758ee417212b2524829ddb005062852e",
        "peetprint_hash": "fc97c1cdfb1409c9a9326c1b726d1dee",
        "ciphers": 16,
        "extensions": 19,
        "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-fetch-site",
          "sec-fetch-mode"
        ]
      },
      "page": {
        "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
        "platform": "Linux x86_64",
        "vendor": "Google Inc.",
        "languages": [
          "en-US",
          "en"
        ],
        "hardware_concurrency": 64,
        "device_memory": 32,
        "max_touch_points": 0,
        "webdriver": false,
        "plugins": 5,
        "pdf_viewer": true,
        "ua_data": {
          "brands": [
            {
              "brand": "Google Chrome",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24"
            }
          ],
          "mobile": false,
          "platform": "Linux",
          "architecture": "x86",
          "bitness": "64",
          "formFactors": [
            "Desktop"
          ],
          "fullVersionList": [
            {
              "brand": "Google Chrome",
              "version": "155.0.8059.39"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155.0.8059.39"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24.0.0.0"
            }
          ],
          "model": "",
          "platformVersion": "",
          "uaFullVersion": "155.0.8059.39",
          "wow64": false
        },
        "screen": "1280x720x1280x720x24",
        "window": {
          "outer": "1288x805",
          "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": "f5a94624",
        "webgpu": true,
        "chrome_object": true,
        "chrome_runtime": false,
        "notification_permission": "default",
        "notification_query": "prompt",
        "has_focus": true,
        "connection_api": true,
        "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": true,
          "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": false,
          "css_scroll_snap_pair": false,
          "fenced_frames": true,
          "compression_dictionary": true
        }
      },
      "page_main_world": null,
      "sannysoft": {
        "checks": 57,
        "failed": 1,
        "failed_names": [
          "WebGL Renderer"
        ],
        "passed": 30
      },
      "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": "155.0.8059.39"
    }
  ]
}

Bottom line

Opera is Chrome's network stack with Opera's name on it: the same TLS, HTTP/2, headers and canvas, a brand that's visible in every identity field, and an engine that trails Chrome by about two majors.

Both cost the same two threads headful; choose by which browser the site should believe it's talking to.