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ExpressJS VS Phantomjs

Compare ExpressJS VS Phantomjs and see what are their differences

ExpressJS logo ExpressJS

Sinatra inspired web development framework for node.js -- insanely fast, flexible, and simple

Phantomjs logo Phantomjs

PhantomJS is a headless browser that works hand in hand with Selenium to help developers more efficiently test their sites and apps.
  • ExpressJS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-14
  • Phantomjs Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-29

ExpressJS features and specs

  • Fast Setup
    ExpressJS provides a minimal and flexible framework that allows rapid setup and development of web and mobile applications.
  • Middleware Support
    ExpressJS has a robust middleware system, allowing developers to add reusable functions to the request-handling pipeline.
  • Extensibility
    ExpressJS is highly extensible through third-party libraries and built-in functionality, catering to the needs of various applications.
  • Performance
    Due to its minimalist core, ExpressJS provides efficient performance and is capable of handling a high number of requests per second.
  • Community and Ecosystem
    A large and active community provides extensive documentation, support, and a wide array of open-source packages to extend functionality.
  • Flexibility
    Compared to full-stack frameworks, ExpressJS gives developers the freedom to structure their applications as they see fit.
  • Compatibility
    ExpressJS works seamlessly with various template engines, databases, and other frameworks, making it versatile for different project requirements.

Possible disadvantages of ExpressJS

  • Minimalist Core
    The minimalist nature of ExpressJS may require additional time and effort to integrate required plugins and libraries for specific features.
  • Learning Curve
    While ExpressJS is straightforward, mastering the middleware pattern and effective usage can have a learning curve for new developers.
  • Callback Hell
    Developers can encounter 'callback hell' due to nested callback functions, though this can be mitigated using Promises and async/await in modern JavaScript.
  • Lack of Convention
    Unlike opinionated frameworks, ExpressJS lacks conventions, which can lead to inconsistent code structure and maintenance challenges across different projects.
  • Security
    ExpressJS does not have built-in security features and relies on third-party solutions, requiring developers to be vigilant about applying best security practices.
  • Scalability
    While ExpressJS can handle high traffic, building and maintaining a highly scalable application might require significant additional effort, particularly in terms of codebase organization and resource management.

Phantomjs features and specs

  • Headless Execution
    PhantomJS can run scripts without the need for a graphical user interface, making it ideal for automation tasks such as web scraping and automated testing, especially in CI environments.
  • Full Web Stack
    It fully supports a range of web standards like DOM, CSS, JavaScript, and even SVG. This makes it highly versatile for different types of web interactions and manipulations.
  • Screenshots
    PhantomJS allows for easy capturing of web content as screenshots, which is useful for visual testing, performance analysis, and content verification.
  • Network Monitoring
    The tool offers capabilities for monitoring network traffic and performance, enabling developers to gather insights on resource loading times, HTTP status codes, and other networking metrics.
  • Simplicity
    PhantomJS provides a straightforward API, making it relatively easy to use and integrate into development and testing workflows even for developers with limited experience in scripting.

Possible disadvantages of Phantomjs

  • Deprecated
    Active development of PhantomJS has been discontinued. This means no new features, improvements, or security updates will be released, which can pose significant risk for long-term projects.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running headless browsers can still be resource-intensive. PhantomJS may consume considerable CPU and memory, which could become a bottleneck in high-performance environments.
  • Limited Modern Web Compatibility
    As the web evolves, new standards and features are introduced. Being discontinued, PhantomJS may lack support for the latest web technologies, potentially leading to rendering discrepancies or failures.
  • Difficulty in Debugging
    Debugging headless browser scripts can be more challenging compared to using full browsers with developer tools, making it harder to resolve complex issues that arise.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    While the API is straightforward, mastering PhantomJS scripting and effectively dealing with asynchronous JavaScript operations and browser-specific quirks can be difficult for beginners.

ExpressJS videos

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Phantomjs videos

How to use PhantomJS with Selenium?

More videos:

  • Review - DrupalCon Portland 2013: AUTOMATED TESTING WITH JASMINE AND PHANTOMJS

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ExpressJS and Phantomjs)
JavaScript Framework
100 100%
0% 0
Development Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Javascript UI Libraries
74 74%
26% 26

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare ExpressJS and Phantomjs

ExpressJS Reviews

Top JavaScript Frameworks in 2025
Express.JS is used to create Restful APIs, which is useful for accepting requests from the front end and sending the appropriate response. Express.JS supports Node.js, which is one of the best reasons developers choose to use it. Moreover, debugging becomes faster and helps in finding errors in less time.
Source: solguruz.com
The 20 Best Laravel Alternatives for Web Development
Express.js — or Express for the cool cats — is Node.js’s minimalist wingman. It’s the train tracks for your web app, setting the path, defining the stops, but letting you drive the engine.
Top 9 best Frameworks for web development
The best frameworks for web development include React, Angular, Vue.js, Django, Spring, Laravel, Ruby on Rails, Flask and Express.js. Each of these frameworks has its own advantages and distinctive features, so it is important to choose the framework that best suits the needs of your project.
Source: www.kiwop.com
9 Best JavaScript Frameworks to Use in 2023
Additionally, Express.js v4 now comes with built-in middleware for handling AJAX requests from the client side, making it even easier to get started without having to worry about 3rd party libraries. Express.js is a great tool for quickly building out web applications and APIs in Node.js.
Source: ninetailed.io
JavaScript: What Are The Most Used Frameworks For This Language?
Express.JS is a popular open-source web application framework for Node.JS, which is a server-side JavaScript runtime environment. Express.JS provides a simple, flexible and scalable way to build web applications and APIs using Node.JS. It is known for its minimalist and unimposing approach, which means it provides a basic set of features and tools but allows developers to...
Source: www.bocasay.com

Phantomjs Reviews

Top 10 Best Selenium Alternatives You Should Try
PhantomJS is an open-source, scriptable headless browser intended for automating webpage collaboration. It is also a powerful testing tool that supports various web standards and makes it appropriate for automation and integration with CI tools.
6 Popular Headless Browsers for Web Testing
Complexity is commonplace in the modern internet landscape, and PhantomJS is built to handle it all using basic command line testing. This headless WebKit is scriptable via the JavaScript API and uses CasperJS to handle testing. Capable of simulating “full navigation scenarios,” PhantomJS can reveal all the places where a user may encounter errors while browsing.
Source: www.keycdn.com
Introduction to Headless Browser Testing
PhantomJS supports headless testing with the use of CasperJS. CasperJS is a navigation scripting & testing tool for PhantomJS. It allows you to build full navigation scenarios using high-level functions and a straight forward interface to accomplish all sizes of tasks.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, ExpressJS seems to be a lot more popular than Phantomjs. While we know about 466 links to ExpressJS, we've tracked only 11 mentions of Phantomjs. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

ExpressJS mentions (466)

  • Reusable API proxy in just a few lines of JavaScript
    The basis of my small API proxy is the NPM package http-proxy-middleware from Steven Chim, which I utilized to build a system that can be used via configuration for various endpoints and that runs on a server under the Node.js framework Express. - Source: dev.to / 7 days ago
  • How To Fetch Image From Database and Display In React JS
    Express Documentation This site has comprehensive guides on setting up routes, handling requests, and working with middleware in Express. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Show HN: MetroJS – JavaScript HTTPS Client with Middleware
    Hi, I've made a javascript https client, based on the browsers Fetch API, with added middleware support. Prebuilt middleware includes JSON, OAuth2.1 and OIDC (OpenID Connect). Differences with for example Axios, is that middleware can capture both request and response in a single function. Middleware is stackable. It is also completely backwards compatible with the Fetch API. Direct inspiration came from Express... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • Which Go Web Backend Framework Is Right for Your Next Project? A Detailed Analysis of Features and Performance
    Fiber draws direct inspiration from Express.js, a widely used web framework in the Node.js ecosystem. It is built on top of Fasthttp, known for its exceptional speed and low memory usage. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • How To Fetch (Get) HTML From Server 🛤️
    To do this, let's create an API route, through which we will receive HTML from the server. For the backend part, we will use Node.js. The framework on which we will do this is Express.js. It is one of the most popular today and it is perfect for the task we are solving. First, we specify the controller that will process the HTML:. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
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Phantomjs mentions (11)

  • youtube bandwidth throttled for cloud addresses?
    Install Phantomjs and see if that improves things. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • How to Bypass Cloudflare in 2023: The 8 Best Methods
    Automated Browser Detection. Cloudflare queries the browser for properties that only exist in automated web browser environments. For example, the existence of the window.document.__selenium_unwrapped or window.callPhantom property indicates the usage of Selenium and PhantomJS, respectively. For obvious reasons, you're getting blocked if this is detected. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Ask HN: What's the best way to get all the HTML from a JavaScript site?
    I know there is https://phantomjs.org/ but is there something else people use these days? The issue is some websites curl works fine to get all the rendered html, but some you don't get any content without a javascript engine. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Detecting PhantomJS headless browsers
    Despite the popularity of Puppeteer and Headless Chrome, my team of threat researchers and I wondered, to what extent PhantomJS was still being used by bot developers. In this post, we share how we identified traffic associated with PhantomJS, the types of attacks performed, and its use in comparison to Puppeteer Extra Stealth. Source: over 2 years ago
  • How to make a SPA SEO crawlable?
    I've been working on how to make a SPA crawlable by google based on google's instructions. Even though there are quite a few general explanations I couldn't find anywhere a more thorough step-by-step tutorial with actual examples. After having finished this I would like to share my solution so that others may also make use of it and possibly improve it further. I am using MVC with Webapi controllers, and... Source: almost 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing ExpressJS and Phantomjs, you can also consider the following products

Node.js - Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications

jQuery - The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library.

Ruby on Rails - Ruby on Rails is an open source full-stack web application framework for the Ruby programming...

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Laravel - A PHP Framework For Web Artisans

Babel - Babel is a compiler for writing next generation JavaScript.