nodrivervscurl-impersonate
nodriver is a Python library for browser automation that communicates directly with the browser via the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP), without relying on Selenium or chromedriver. It is the successor to undetected-chromedriver, created by the same author, and is designed from the ground up to be undetectable by anti-bot systems.
Key advantages over traditional browser automation:
- No chromedriver dependency Communicates directly with Chrome/Chromium via CDP websocket, eliminating the most common detection vector (chromedriver fingerprint).
- Undetectable by default
Does not set the
navigator.webdriverflag, does not inject automation-related JavaScript, and avoids CDP detection patterns that anti-bot systems look for. - Fast and lightweight Without the Selenium/WebDriver protocol overhead, nodriver is significantly faster at launching browsers and executing commands.
- Async-first Built entirely on Python's asyncio, enabling efficient concurrent browser automation.
- Simple API Clean, Pythonic API that is easier to use than raw CDP or Selenium.
nodriver is particularly useful for scraping websites protected by advanced anti-bot systems like Cloudflare, DataDome, or PerimeterX, where standard Selenium or Playwright setups get detected and blocked.
Curl-impersonate is a special build of libcurl and cURL HTTP client that impersonates the four major browsers:
- Google Chrome
- Microsoft Edge
- Safari
- Firefox
Curl-impersonate achieves this by patching TLS and HTTP fingerprints to be identical to that of one of these real browsers.
Unlike other HTTP clients curl-impersonate can bypass TSL and HTTP fingerprinting and detection techniques though it does not implement anything for Javascript fingerprint or bypass.