SlimerJS
SlimerJS is a scriptable browser for web scraping and testing, similar to PhantomJS, based on Gecko and Firefox. It provides a JavaScript API for controlling a browser to load pages, extract content, run tests, take screenshots, etc.
automation
headless
browser
testing
SlimerJS: Scriptable Browser for Web Scraping & Testing
SlimerJS is a scriptable browser for web scraping and testing, similar to PhantomJS, based on Gecko and Firefox. It provides a JavaScript API for controlling a browser to load pages, extract content, run tests, take screenshots, etc.
What is SlimerJS?
SlimerJS is an open source scriptable browser engine built on top of Gecko, the browser engine that powers Mozilla Firefox. It provides a JavaScript API that allows you to control a browser instance programatically for automation, testing, web scraping, and other purposes.
Some key features and capabilities of SlimerJS include:
- Full JavaScript execution environment through SpiderMonkey.
- DOM manipulation through standard DOM methods and JavaScript libraries like jQuery.
- Interact directly with web pages, extract content, fill forms, click elements, take screenshots.
- Run automated tests using frameworks like CasperJS, Mocha, QUnit.
- Scrape data and generate previews of web pages for caching or indexing.
- Capture website screenshots for responsive design testing.
- Scriptable access alleviates the need for browser extensions or plugins.
As SlimerJS uses the Gecko engine, it can render web pages in the same way Firefox does, offering strong compatibility with modern web technologies and standards. This distinguishes it from tools like PhantomJS which use an older WebKit engine.
Overall, SlimerJS offers a capable scriptable browser environment for programmatically controlling a browser instance to perform a variety of automation, testing, scraping, and integration tasks on websites and web apps.
SlimerJS Features
Features
- Headless browser based on Gecko (Firefox) engine
- Supports latest JavaScript and CSS features
- Can run existing Firefox extensions and userscripts
- JavaScript API for web page automation
- Capture screenshots of web pages
- Scrape and parse content from web pages
- Run automated tests on web pages
- Emulate mouse and keyboard interactions
Pricing
- Open Source
Pros
Lightweight and fast
More standards compliant than PhantomJS
Supports more JavaScript features than PhantomJS
Can leverage existing Firefox devtools
Cons
Not as fast as PhantomJS
Lacks some advanced features of PhantomJS like proxy rotation
Smaller user base than PhantomJS
Official Links
The Best SlimerJS Alternatives
Top Development and Web Scraping and other similar apps like SlimerJS
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