Best Headless Browsers in 2024: Reviewed

Are you looking for the best headless browser for web scraping? You've come to the right place! 

Headless browsers are commonly used for automation testing and scraping of dynamic web pages. In this article, we've reviewed the most popular ones and highlighted their pros and cons so you can choose the best one for your project.

Let's go!

What Is a Headless Browser?

A headless browser is simply a browser without a user interface. While their purpose is to let you control the browser in headless mode, most offer an optional GUI mode for debugging or specific use cases, such as ensuring accurate rendering or capturing visual elements that might be hidden in headless operation.

Although headless browsers are popularly used for automation testing, their ability to automate browsers and execute JavaScript makes them a valuable tool for web scraping. 

Some of the benefits of scraping with headless browsers include:

• Browser automation to mimic human interactions, such as clicking, hovering, scrolling, typing, and more. 
• JavaScript support for dynamic content extraction.
• Increased speed due to lack of a browser user interface.

However, headless browsers have some significant limitations. They present bot-like signals, such as the WebDriver, making them prone to anti-bot detection. Additionally, running multiple headless browser instances results in memory overhead, making them unsuitable for large-scale scraping.

You've gained an overview of how headless browsers work. Let's now compare the 8 top headless browsers in the next section.

Top Headless Browsers

We've compared the most popular headless browsers across various programming languages and came up with the 8 top ones.

Programming language support and browser compatibility are essential factors when choosing a headless browser. Additionally, your chosen headless browser should receive frequent updates and have an active community on sites like GitHub and Stack Overflow.

Let's start with a quick comparison of the 8 top headless browsers in the table below

1. ZenRows

ZenRows is a web scraping API with all the functionalities of a headless browser. It offers all the toolkits required to avoid getting blocked while scraping, including auto-rotating premium proxies, CAPTCHA and anti-bot auto-bypass, and more. ZenRows is one of the fastest-growing web scraping solutions.

ZenRows mitigates all the potential drawbacks of open-source headless browsers. It's compatible with all programming languages, non-selective with browsers, fast, and beginner-friendly. All it takes to use ZenRows is a single API call, and watch it handle your scraping tasks effectively.

👍 Pros:

• Specifically tailored for web scraping and crawling.
• Complete anti-bot bypass solution with a high success rate.
• Supports JavaScript to scrape dynamic pages.
• Support for all programming languages.
• Easy to use.
• Support for concurrency.
• Full-scale screenshot support.
• Fast.
• 24/7 active customer support.
• Excellent knowledge base and documentation to solve problems quickly.

👎 Cons:

• It's a paid solution, but you can try it for free.
• Unsuitable for automation testing.

2. Playwright

Created by Microsoft, Playwright is one of the most popular test automation and web scraping tools with 64.5k GitHub stars. It features headless mode by default but offers an optional GUI mode. It has an auto-wait feature that automatically pauses for the DOM to load before further actions. Playwright is compatible with popular browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. It also supports programming languages like Python, JavaScript, .NET, and Java. 

Playwright has a dedicated code generator you can leverage to generate locators seamlessly without inspecting the website via the browser's inspection tool. It also has a command-line tool that helps you install and manage browser WebDrivers seamlessly. Although it supports an asynchronous mode to run your scraping tasks concurrently, running multiple browser instances results in memory overhead.

Read our complete tutorial on web scraping with Playwright to learn more.

👍 Pros:

• Headless and GUI mode options.
• Asynchronous mode for concurrent scraping.
• Selector generator tool.
• Support for various programming languages.
• Auto-wait feature.
• Active user community.
• Effective WebDriver management.
• Support for all screenshot types.

👎 Cons:

• Risk of memory overhead.
• Prone to anti-bot detection and blocking.
• Difficult to set up, especially for beginners.
• Steep learning curve.

3. Puppeteer

Puppeteer is a headless browser for automation testing and web scraping in Node.js. It has an active community with 87.9k GitHub stars. Puppeteer previously only supported the Chrome browser. However, it has added Firefox support via the WebDriver BiDi protocol in version 23.0.1. Like Playwright, it runs headless mode by default but allows you to switch to the GUI mode for debugging.

While it's a JavaScript library, it has a Python port called Pyppeteer, allowing you to use its features in Python. Puppeteer also supports all screenshot types. With Puppeteer, you can also intercept network requests and selectively modify requests on the fly. The library also supports multiple browser contexts, so you can run scraping tasks in multiple tabs within a single browser instance.

Want to learn more? Take a look at our complete guide to Puppeteer web scraping.

👍 Pros:

• Request interception.
• Headless and GUI mode.
• Complete browser automation feature.
• Active community.
• Support for multiple browser contexts.
• Asynchronous support for concurrent scraping.
• Complete screenshot API.

👎 Cons:

• Limited browser support.
• Easily detected by anti-bots.
• Some Puppeteer features aren't yet compatible with the WebDriver BiDi protocol.
• Limited programming language support.

4. Selenium

Selenium is one of the earliest and most popular automation tools with a headless browser feature, totaling 30k GitHub stars. Compared to the other tools, it covers more browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Internet Explorer. It also supports more programming languages like Python, JavaScript, PHP, Java, C#, Perl, Ruby, and .NET. The tool features an IDE that allows you to automate the browser without writing code manually. 

Selenium supports a grid system for parallel execution across several browsers and machines. WebDriver management in Selenium can be challenging. However, you can use the WebDriverManager as a utility to install the required WebDriver version of your chosen browser automatically. It also integrates with third-party libraries like Pytest, providing assertions for validating automation outcomes.

Read our article on using Selenium for web scraping in Python to learn more.

👍 Pros:

• Active community.
• Support for many programming languages and browsers.
• No code IDE to generate automation code.
• Grid system for parallel execution.
• Support for the WebDriverManager to simplify WebDriver updates.
• Integration with third-party tools.

👎 Cons:

• Easily detected by anti-bots due to anti-bot properties.
• Multiple browser instances result in slow performance.
• Steep learning curve.
• WebDriver management can be costly at scale.

5. Splash

Splash is a headless web scraping tool that uses a custom, lightweight web rendering engine based on QtWebKit. It fully supports JavaScript rendering, allowing you to perform interactions such as scrolling, hovering, and clicking during web scraping. While Splash is written in Python, it primarily uses the Lua scripting language to automate browser-based tasks. However, it's less popular than other tools, with 4.1k GitHub stars and fairly decent mentions on Stack Overflow.

Splash provides a dedicated server that communicates over an HTTP API, making it accessible from various programming languages. You can write the scraping logic in Lua, send it to Splash via the API, and receive the rendered result. Splash also integrates seamlessly with Scrapy, a popular Python web scraping framework. This integration allows Scrapy to handle JavaScript-rendered content when extracting data.

Check out our detailed tutorial on web scraping with Scrapy-Splash to learn more about how Splash works with Scrapy.

👍 Pros:

• Seamless integration with Python's Scrapy.
• Lightweight and fast.
• Support for any programming language over an HTTP API.
• Dedicated local or remote server.
• JavaScript rendering to automate web interactions.
• No browser instance overhead.
• Tailored for large-scale web scraping.
• Screenshot support.

👎 Cons:

• Low user base.
• Server setup can be technically challenging for beginners.
• It requires learning the Lua scripting language, complicating its learning curve.

6. HtmlUnit

HtmlUnit is a Java headless browser library based on the Mozilla Rhino rendering engine. Unlike most headless browsers, HtmlUnit is strictly headless and doesn't have the GUI option. It features smooth HTML parsing and full-scale JavaScript rendering, allowing your scraper to interact with web pages like a regular browser. It supports Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.

To manage resources while scraping, you can block memory-demanding assets such as JavaScript and CSS. This feature is handy when scraping simple websites that don't require JavaScript rendering. Although HtmlUnit is less popular than other tools, it has a decent representation on developer community platforms like Stack Overflow.

To learn more about this library, read our complete article on web scraping with HtmlUnit.

👍 Pros:

• The lack of a GUI makes it more lightweight and faster than other mainstream alternatives.
• Multiple browser emulation.
• Full-scale JavaScript rendering.
• Block unwanted resources easily.
• Seamless integration with Java programs.
• Highly customizable.

👎 Cons:

• Its strict headless mode makes debugging difficult.
• It doesn't support screenshots.
• Steep learning curve.
• Easily detectable as a bot.
• Strictly limited Java.

7. Chromedp

Chromedp is one of the top Golang headless browsers for test automation and web scraping. It strictly supports Chrome simulation over the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP). Chromedp also runs headless mode by default, but you can switch to GUI mode, depending on your requirements. It's reasonably popular, with 10.7k GitHub stars and positive mentions on Stack Overflow.

Access to the CDP allows Chromedp to intercept the network, allowing you to modify ongoing requests with extra functionalities, such as blocking resources, setting a User Agent, adding proxies, and more. Chromedp takes advantage of Golang's concurrency, making it suitable for large-scale web scraping.

Check out our complete article on Chromedp web scraping to learn more.

👍 Pros:

• Takes advantage of Golang's concurrency.
• Easily integrates with Golang applications.
• Screenshot support.
• Network interception to modify requests on the fly.
• GUI and headless mode options.
• Full-scale Chrome automation.
• Lower memory overhead due to CDP support.

👎 Cons:

• Steep learning curve.
• It has easily detectable bot-like signals, such as HeadlessChrome.
• Limited browser support.
• Strictly available in Golang.

8. Cypress

Cypress is an end-to-end scraping framework in JavaScript. It supports multiple browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Edge and has an active user community with 46.5k GitHub stars. Cypress maintains a standard project set up via Electron and supports the GUI mode by default. However, you can also spin it headless to remove the GUI overhead.

However, Cypress is primarily designed for automation testing rather than web scraping. Its strict testing environment setup limits customization for data extraction, making it less suitable for complex scraping tasks. That said, Cypress offers a simple and robust screenshot API, which is valuable for specific scraping-related tasks, such as competitor's page monitoring.

👍 Pros:

• Complete browser automation feature.
• Support for multiple browsers.
• Active user community.
• User interface to quickly set up a development environment.
• Simple learning curve.

👎 Cons:

• Limited to JavaScript.
• Not suitable for complex scraping tasks.
• Limited flexibility for customization.

Conclusion

You've just seen a comparison of eight top headless browsers for web scraping and testing. Headless browsers offer browser automation, simplifying human interaction simulation and dynamic content extraction. Different headless browsers differ in terms of extra features, browser compatibility, and language support.

However, scraping with unfortified headless browsers will get your scraper blocked. The best way to deal with anti-bots and scrape any website without getting blocked is to use a web scraping API like ZenRows.

Try ZenRows for free now without a credit card!