needle is an HTTP client library for Node.js that provides a simple, flexible, and powerful API for making HTTP requests.
It supports all major HTTP methods and has a clean and easy-to-use interface for handling responses and errors.
Mechanize is a Ruby library for automating interaction with websites. It automatically
stores and sends cookies, follows redirects, and can submit forms — making it behave
like a web browser without needing an actual browser engine.
Key features include:
- Automatic cookie management
Stores cookies received from servers and sends them back on subsequent requests,
maintaining session state across multiple pages.
- Form handling
Can find, fill in, and submit HTML forms programmatically. Supports text inputs,
selects, checkboxes, radio buttons, and file uploads.
- Link following
Navigate through pages by clicking links using their text content, CSS selectors,
or href patterns.
- History and back/forward
Maintains a browsing history, allowing you to go back and forward through visited pages.
- HTTP authentication
Supports basic and digest HTTP authentication.
- Proxy support
Can route requests through HTTP proxies.
- Redirect handling
Automatically follows HTTP redirects (configurable).
Mechanize is one of the oldest and most established web interaction libraries in Ruby.
It is best suited for scraping traditional server-rendered websites with forms and
multi-page workflows. For JavaScript-heavy sites, a browser automation tool like
Selenium or Playwright is recommended instead.
```javascript
const needle = require('needle');
// needle supports both Promises and async/await
needle.get('https://httpbin.org/get', (err, res) => {
if (err) {
console.error(err);
return;
}
console.log(res.body);
});
const response = await needle.get('https://httpbin.org/get')
// concurrent requests can be sent using Promise.all
const results = await Promise.all([
needle.get('http://httpbin.org/html'),
needle.get('http://httpbin.org/html'),
needle.get('http://httpbin.org/html'),
])
// POST requests
const data = { name: 'John Doe' };
await needle.post('https://api.example.com', data)
// proxy
const options = {
proxy: 'http://proxy.example.com:8080'
};
await needle.get('https://httpbin.org/ip', options)
// headers and cookies
const options = {
headers: {
'Cookie': 'myCookie=123',
'X-My-Header': 'myValue'
}
};
await needle.get('https://httpbin.org/headers', options)
```
```ruby
require 'mechanize'
agent = Mechanize.new
# Navigate to a page
page = agent.get('https://example.com')
puts page.title
# Find and click a link
page = page.link_with(text: 'Products').click
# Extract data from the page
page.search('.product').each do |product|
name = product.at('.name').text
price = product.at('.price').text
puts "#{name}: #{price}"
end
# Fill in and submit a login form
login_page = agent.get('https://example.com/login')
form = login_page.form_with(action: '/login')
form['username'] = 'user@example.com'
form['password'] = 'password123'
dashboard = agent.submit(form)
# Cookies are maintained automatically
puts dashboard.title # "Dashboard"
# Download a file
agent.get('https://example.com/report.csv').save('report.csv')
```