I tried 6 next-gen browsers - here's what I found

Frontend developer evaluates the features of Arc, Dia, Comet, Zen, Atlas, and Vivaldi browsers.

As a frontend architect and a software engineer, my daily work domain remains partly in the browser. That’s why I am always on the lookout for fresh browsers to try out and see how they take into account user’s experience, what new features they implement, and what’s their stance on user privacy.

For the past few years, new browsers started appearing, with promises of supercharged user experience, new features that change how we browse, and some with enhanced privacy improvements.

Over the years, there are glimpses of a new browser war forming, in aims to establish Chrome’s next-gen successor.

Let’s take the journey among the current next-gen browser offerings through the lenses of frontend engineer’s glasses, who spends most of their day working with browser capabilities.

Arc - The first browser that won me over

Arc was first recommended to me by a fellow dev. It felt like the browser I was looking for but never quite found. The Browser Company released this trendsetter in 2023, and among the frontend and tech community it quickly became the new shiny browser. I joined the trend in December 2023, and Arc became my default browser for more than a year. The browser focuses on user experience and brings minimal but modern design, including a now famous sidebar navigation and workspaces.

Not only that, it also brings multiple usability features, including:

• auto rename tabs and downloaded files

• split-view tabs

• tidy tabs

and a bunch more. You won’t even notice how many small features are included. This makes everything feel more organized and accessible.

You can also save your config, themes, bookmarks, and workspaces by creating an account - a handy feature when switching between different devices. You also get one of these nice user profiles:

Dia - Arc’s little brother powered by AI

Dia, another browser by The Browser Company, was released earlier this year as a closed beta for previous Arc members. The twist? AI-powered workflows.

As someone who’s careful about using AI as part of my work stream, I doubted I’d see much use of this feature. But having known the success of Arc, I wanted to make use of the opportunity and give it a go. The migration was painless - I was able to import my spaces and extensions from Arc with just a few clicks.

The incentive behind integrating AI into a browser is so that you can “chat” with your tabs - get information about its content, pull in context from multiple pages, and even get suggestions for filling out info based on the website’s structure.

Everything looked like there was a huge potential to be unlocked. I jumped on the hype train besides it missing some Arc features like sidebar (I suspect the newest version adopts it now). Over time though, I started catching myself switching between Arc and Dia, using one when I needed to focus, and the other when I wanted to play with AI.

I started to lose hope about AI-powered browsers… until a new kid showed up to the block.

Comet - a browser that browses for you

Comet, another AI-powered browser released out of nowhere by Perplexity, one of the big guys for LLM interaction, was supposed to enhance the prompting experience by allowing the users to ask the browser to search and interact with pages directly.

Fortunately, I was (and still am) a heavy user of Perplexity with a Pro subscription at that time, so I got early access to limited beta only available for subscribed users. Knowing how much I had enjoyed using Perplexity for research, I HAD to look into the inviting premise of having my favorite AI available anywhere I’m searching.

The news had spread fast, and Comet became the talking point among next-gen browsers. Compared to the UX-focused nature of Arc and Dia, this browser was much closer to the vanilla experience of Chromium-based browsers. It had the default tab bar, bookmarks, and anything else you’re comfortable with. Plus the chat window to the right, of course!

“I’m already using Perplexity, so why not have it already in the browser” - I told myself, excited to experiment with what was possible with this new technology.

So how much did I achieve with the ability to let my AI browse for me?

Honestly? I didn’t really use it. It is fair to point out that I still made use of the chat window, but it wasn’t really different to doing one more click to switch my tab to perplexity.ai’s website. Besides some very unique situations, or showing it off to friends, there really isn’t much to do here.

Despite sacrificing the user experience Arc offered, I stayed with Comet as my default browser for a few more months, until a new browser caught my eye…

Zen - the browser that almost has it all

I was in the market for a new browser that would persuade me to switch from Comet’s underlying UX sacrifices. This is when I stumbled upon Zen. Zen is much like Arc, designed to be a minimal, modern, user-friendly browser.

The difference? It’s powered by Firefox’s Quantum browser engine, unlike the others’ Chromium engine. It’s also open-source - a core value that always excites developers of my kind.

If I had to describe Zen in one sentence, it would be:

Zen is an open-source, Firefox-based, privacy focused counterpart to Arc.

The UI looks like Arc, the UX feels like Arc, yet it feels a bit more… zen? I quickly got hooked - always wanted to try out a browser not based on Chromium, embrace the open-source nature, and this felt like the perfect option. I don’t have to sacrifice usability that I get with Arc, and I can support a project that supports my values - open-source, privacy, and user experience.

Unknowingly, I had to sacrifice three things though:

1. Extensions - even though this is not the Zen’s fault, it’s just underwhelming to see that Firefox is missing some of my favorite extensions that are available in Chrome. Others are just worse versions.

2. Config backup - unlike Arc, I was unable to sync my setup between devices as Zen does not currently allow it (maybe an opportunity for future?)

3. Some styles are handled differently by Firefox, and Chrome being the gold standard these days, I must default to what is rendered there (some new features also take longer to adopt in Firefox)

Ultimately, after weeks of trying to stay with Zen, some of these things were too deal-breaking to keep using it. It was honestly the saddest I felt when switching from a browser, because everything else is there. The browser is still in Beta, so I’m definitely keeping an eye out on any future updates to see if I can one day switch to Zen permanently.

Atlas - OpenAI’s copy of other AI browsers

To compete with Perplexity’s Comet and The Browser Company’s Dia browsers with AI integrations, OpenAI released their own solution - Atlas, available for everyone (as of now, all three browsers are now available to anyone).

The browser is still quite new (only a few weeks old at the point of writing this), so it’s difficult to get a long-term experience with it to properly review it. From my limited experimentation though, I’d defer to the same premises of Comet. Atlas copies most of what the other AI browsers offer, for now it’s mostly a play to secure an AI-browser audience on their own, and have their cards on the table too.

I am not the biggest fan of OpenAI nor ChatGPT, so I’ll cautious around the potential privacy consequences. In terms of features, the grass is as green as with Comet, and I don’t suspect OpenAI will focus on UX anytime soon.

Vivaldi - an established browser with a promising future

Last, but not least in my journey to find the perfect browser for me is Vivaldi. This browser was developed back in 2015 by a former Opera co-founder and markets itself to primarily power users. The browser strives to be the all-in-one solution, fully customizable per every user’s needs.

Vivaldi offers a big amount of features, including its own email client, calendar, note-taking app, embedded translations, and much more. It also uses Proton VPN by default when you create a Vivaldi account; this also allows for syncing browser data, similarly to Arc.

On top of that, you can customize Vivaldi to your liking. This includes themes, shortcuts, different flows, tiles stacking, workspaces, and other interfaces.

For some, this can be an overwhelming amount of features. For me, I like the premise of a browser designed for power users. However, I tend to lean into minimal interfaces though. Moreover, I couldn’t find a valuable use case for most of its unique features. I also like to use my own solutions for calendar and email, so using Vivaldi would just add extra bloat that I don’t need - and frankly, don’t belong to a minimal setup.

Side-by-side comparison

Having mentioned my experience with all six browsers, I’d like to organize my thoughts into a side-by-side comparison so you can decide what each browser offers.

	🌈 Arc	🌤️ Dia	☄️ Comet	🧘‍♂️ Zen	🌎 Atlas	🎶 Vivaldi
Developer	The Browser Company	The Browser Company	Perplexity	Zen Browser team (OSS)	OpenAI	Vivaldi Technologies
Main features	Minimal UI, auto-rename tabs/files, split-view, tidy tabs, sidebar, workspaces	AI chat with tabs, sidebar, workspaces + other Arc features	AI chat window with web content browser-AI interaction	Minimal UI much like Arc, privacy-focused	AI chat window with web content browser-AI interaction	Built-in email, calendar, notes, VPN, multiple interface customizations
Browser Engine	🌐 Chromium	🌐 Chromium	🌐 Chromium	🦊 Firefox	🌐 Chromium	🌐 Chromium
Performance	Smooth and fast	Standard, but AI processing	Standard	Smooth, occasional Firefox quirks	Standard, but AI processing, sometimes longer loads	Robust, but heavy
User experience	Intuitive, feels nice	Intuitive, feels nice, rarely used AI chat features	Standard, rarely used AI chat features	Intuitive, feels nice, lacks some Chromium feats	Standard, rarely used AI chat features	Feature overload for minimalists, good for power users
Privacy	Commitment to privacy	Commitment to privacy	Data shared with Perplexity	Privacy-focused + OSS	Data shared with OpenAI	Privacy-focused + VPN
Open-source	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌
Sync Support	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅
Sidebar	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	✅
Split-view	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	✅
Workspaces	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅
Ad blocker	✅	❌	✅	✅	❌	✅
AI integration	❌	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌
Overall score	8/10	6/10	5/10	7/10	3/10	5/10

How to choose your browser

If you’re a minimalist who appreciates user experience, I recommend using:

• Arc, if you prefer Chromium features

• Zen, if you don’t mind sacrificing sync or you value Zen’s propositions

If you’re a frequent AI user, who wants to explore how chatting with tabs works, I recommend using:

• Dia, if you also appreciate minimal design and UX features

• Comet or Atlas, based on your LLM subscription or preference

If you’re a power user, who wants an established browser that will deliver robust features and customization, you won’t regret trying out Vivaldi.

What I’m currently using

I recently switched back to using Arc for its minimal design and user-friendly features.

At the current state of AI browsers, I don’t see much value in them for my use cases, so I’ll only stay watching how they evolve over time.

Recently, The Browser Company (developer of Arc and Dia) was bought by Atlassian (company behind popular work tools like Jira and Confluence), and Arc’s developments were discontinued beyond just security updates to focus solely on Dia. Due to this questionable move, I will be on the lookout for upcoming browsers with similar premises and style as Arc.

I will also stay up to date with Zen’s development, to see if it’s worth switching to in the future.

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Thanks for reading!

I’m Tom, a frontend architect & software engineer based in Prague, with years of experience from companies like Mastercard and Make. I write dev updates and tips about frontend, design, 3D, tech writing, & more.

I believe the bridge between designers and developers is crucial. I work to strengthen it, jumping into both worlds to create better products by applying 3D, visual art, and code - a skill not many embrace yet. 🎨

You can find more about me at 🔗 grusz.dev or find my projects on ✨ GitHub.