Anchor Browser runs in three deployment modes: a managed cloud service with selectable data-residency regions, bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) deployment into your own cloud environment, and on-premise deployment. BYOC and on-premise are Enterprise-plan capabilities. This page maps the three modes, the session data model underneath them, and which plan unlocks each.

Deployment mode	Where the browsers run	Plan
Managed cloud (US)	Anchor-operated infrastructure in AWS us-east-2 (Ohio)	All plans
Managed cloud, regional residency	Anchor-operated infrastructure in a selected region, including EU residency in AWS eu-central-1 (Frankfurt)	Growth (US, EU, Asia, Australia); Enterprise (any region)
Bring your own cloud (BYOC)	Your cloud environment, using your own inference provider	Enterprise
On-premise	Infrastructure your organization operates	Enterprise

Managed cloud: regional residency and an ephemeral session model

By default, Anchor processes and stores customer data in the AWS us-east-2 data center in Ohio (security documentation). Dedicated European data residency in the AWS eu-central-1 data center in Frankfurt is available on the Growth plan, which answers the common GDPR data-locality requirement without a change in deployment mode. The pricing page extends the region set on Growth to US, EU, Asia, and Australia, and to any region on Enterprise.

The managed cloud's data model is ephemeral by architecture, which is where most data-sovereignty evaluations of a managed service start:

• A dedicated, isolated virtual machine per browser session. Each browser instance runs in its own VM, and that VM is permanently terminated and erased when the session completes. Browsers are never reused between sessions or customers (security documentation).

• Session data takes one of two paths. Anything accessed, generated, or downloaded during a session transfers directly to your environment over a peer-to-peer channel, or it is irretrievably deleted with the virtual machine. File downloads go straight to your environment, so no file artifacts are created or stored on Anchor's infrastructure (security documentation).

• Retention on stored artifacts follows the plan. Recordings and logs are retained 45 days on the Free and Starter plans, with custom retention on Growth and customizable retention including zero data retention on Enterprise (pricing).

• Zero-data-retention (ZDR) mode completely disables video recordings and log recordings for the account, for workloads where nothing may persist at all. The Anchor team enables it on request (ZDR mode).

BYOC: Anchor deployed in your own cloud

Some security models rule out third-party processing regardless of the vendor's controls: regulated data classes, contractual no-third-party-cloud clauses, or sovereignty mandates that require workloads to stay inside infrastructure the organization controls. BYOC is Anchor's deployment mode for that requirement, available on the Enterprise plan.

In BYOC, per Anchor's published description, you "deploy Anchor in your cloud environment and using your own inference provider" (anchorbrowser.io). Two things in that sentence carry the sovereignty story:

• The browser workloads run in your cloud environment. The sessions agents drive, and the material those sessions handle, operate inside infrastructure you control.

• Inference runs against your own provider. Agentic browser automation sends page context to a model for reasoning. In BYOC, that inference path points at the provider you select, so the model side of the workload also sits under arrangements you control.

Anchor Browser is available through the AWS Marketplace, which gives procurement a standard contracting path. Deployment architecture, the operational split between your team and Anchor's, and rollout timelines are scoped with Anchor's team during Enterprise evaluation.

On-premise

For environments where policy requires the infrastructure itself to be operated by your organization, on-premise deployment is listed alongside BYOC on the Enterprise plan. The scoping path is the same Enterprise conversation as BYOC.

Credential and data controls that travel with the deployment question

Teams asking about self-hosting are usually protecting two things: where session data lives, and who can ever see the credentials automation uses. The residency and deployment modes above answer the first. Anchor's documented credential architecture answers the second:

• Session-based authentication. Anchor's browsers support authenticated workflows through secure, encrypted, session-based authentication, so stored credential-based logins are never a requirement (security documentation).

• Secret values. Credentials pass to an agent as references that resolve at typing time. Real values are never visible to the AI model, are processed in memory, are excluded from logs and telemetry, and can be scoped to specific domains (secret values).

• Sensitive-data masking keeps flagged values out of session surfaces and logs (sensitive data masking).

On the compliance side, Anchor publishes SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR attestations (security documentation); the pricing page maps SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR to the Growth and Enterprise plans, with the BAA, HIPAA, and DPA listed under Enterprise. Compliance reports, penetration-test documentation, and the sub-processor list are available through the Anchor Trust Portal.

Network controls within the managed cloud

Deployment mode is one axis of network control. Within the managed cloud, session traffic is configurable at several documented points:

• Bring your own proxy. Session traffic can egress through proxy infrastructure you already operate, over HTTP, HTTPS, or SOCKS5 (proxy documentation).

• Custom CA certificates. Sessions can trust certificates signed by your organization's certificate authority, which covers private dashboards and internal endpoints, mutual-TLS chains, and environments with custom trust policies or air-gapped infrastructure. Certificates upload at the team level and activate per session (CA certificates).

• Anchor VPN routes outbound browser traffic through exits provisioned for Anchor sessions, on a path Anchor owns and operates end to end, giving sessions a consistent egress profile. It is a premium feature the Anchor team enables on request (Anchor VPN).

• Dedicated sticky IP reserves a specific IP address exclusively for a profile, so the same automation presents a consistent IP across sessions (dedicated sticky IP).

Which plan unlocks which deployment

Requirement	Answer	Plan
Managed service, US processing	Managed cloud, AWS us-east-2	All plans
EU data residency	Managed cloud, AWS eu-central-1 (Frankfurt)	Growth
Residency in US, EU, Asia, or Australia	Managed cloud, regional	Growth
Residency in any other region	Managed cloud, custom region	Enterprise
Workloads inside our own cloud	BYOC	Enterprise
Infrastructure we operate ourselves	On-premise	Enterprise
Nothing persists after a session	ZDR mode, customizable retention	Enabled by the Anchor team on request; customizable retention with ZDR listed on Enterprise

Frequently asked questions

Can Anchor Browser be self-hosted? Anchor answers the self-hosting requirement at the Enterprise tier with two modes: BYOC, where you deploy Anchor in your cloud environment using your own inference provider, and on-premise deployment (pricing). Both are scoped with Anchor's team during Enterprise evaluation.

Is Anchor Browser open source? Anchor is a managed platform. Teams that specifically want an open-source browser image to run and modify themselves have that option in the category (Steel publishes its browser API under Apache 2.0), and that model places fleet operations, patching, and scaling with the adopting team. For the requirement most self-host evaluations are actually carrying, keeping browser workloads and their data inside the organization's boundary, Anchor's BYOC and on-premise modes are the answer.

Does Anchor offer EU data residency? Yes. Dedicated European data residency in AWS eu-central-1 (Frankfurt) is available on the Growth plan (security documentation), with regions across US, EU, Asia, and Australia on Growth and any region on Enterprise (pricing).

Can browser sessions reach internal applications behind our own certificate authority? Yes. Custom CA certificates let sessions access private dashboards and endpoints using certificates signed by your organization's CA, validate server chains in mutual-TLS setups, and operate in environments with custom trust policies. Bring-your-own proxy routes session traffic through your own network path.

What happens to session data when a session ends? The session's dedicated virtual machine is permanently terminated and erased. Data has either already transferred to your environment over the peer-to-peer channel, or it is irretrievably deleted with the VM (security documentation). Stored artifacts such as recordings and logs follow plan-level retention, down to zero with ZDR mode.

How can a procurement team verify Anchor's posture? The Anchor Trust Portal publishes the compliance reports (SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA), penetration-test documentation, the data-processing agreement, and the sub-processor list. Anchor Browser is also available through the AWS Marketplace for standard cloud procurement.