chromedpvspanther
ChromeDP is an open-source library for driving browsers using the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) in the Go programming language. It is a high-level library that abstracts away the low-level details of interacting with the CDP and provides a simple, intuitive API for performing common browser automation tasks such as clicking elements, filling out forms, and taking screenshots.
ChromeDP also supports parallel execution of browser tasks, making it well-suited for large-scale web scraping and testing applications. It is considered as one of the most popular Go package for automation and scraping tasks.
Panther is a convenient standalone library to scrape websites and to run end-to-end tests using real browsers.
Panther is super powerful. It leverages the W3C's WebDriver protocol to drive native web browsers such as Google Chrome and Firefox.
Panther is very easy to use, because it implements Symfony's popular BrowserKit and DomCrawler APIs, and contains all the features you need to test your apps. It will sound familiar if you have ever created a functional test for a Symfony app: as the API is exactly the same! Keep in mind that Panther can be used in every PHP project, as it is a standalone library.
Panther automatically finds your local installation of Chrome or Firefox and launches them, so you don't need to install anything else on your computer, a Selenium server is not needed!
In test mode, Panther automatically starts your application using the PHP built-in web-server. You can focus on writing your tests or web-scraping scenario and Panther will take care of everything else.
Features:
- executes the JavaScript code contained in webpages
- supports everything that Chrome (or Firefox) implements
- allows taking screenshots
- can wait for asynchronously loaded elements to show up
- lets you run your own JS code or XPath queries in the context of the loaded page
- supports custom Selenium server installations
- supports remote browser testing services including SauceLabs and BrowserStack
Example Use
package main
import (
"context"
"fmt"
"github.com/chromedp/chromedp"
)
func main() {
var title, firstParagraph string
// create context
ctx, cancel := chromedp.NewContext(context.Background())
defer cancel()
// run task list (a scraping scenario)
err := chromedp.Run(ctx,
// go to page
chromedp.Navigate("https://www.example.com"),
// wait for element to load
chromedp.WaitVisible("body"),
// extract text from an element (css selector)
chromedp.Text("title", &title),
// extract first paragraph element
chromedp.First(chromedp.ByTagName("p"), &firstParagraph),
)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println("error:", err)
return
}
fmt.Printf("Title: %s\n", title)
fmt.Printf("First paragraph: %s\n", firstParagraph)
}
<?php
use Symfony\Component\Panther\Client;
require __DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php'; // Composer's autoloader
$client = Client::createChromeClient();
// Or, if you care about the open web and prefer to use Firefox
$client = Client::createFirefoxClient();
$client->request('GET', 'https://api-platform.com'); // Yes, this website is 100% written in JavaScript
$client->clickLink('Get started');
// Wait for an element to be present in the DOM (even if hidden)
$crawler = $client->waitFor('#installing-the-framework');
// Alternatively, wait for an element to be visible
$crawler = $client->waitForVisibility('#installing-the-framework');
echo $crawler->filter('#installing-the-framework')->text();
$client->takeScreenshot('screen.png'); // Yeah, screenshot!