Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

puppeteer VS Ionic Framework

Compare puppeteer VS Ionic Framework and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

puppeteer logo puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome or Chromium...

Ionic Framework logo Ionic Framework

A front-end SDK to develop applications with HTML5 , CSS3 and JavaScript.
  • puppeteer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-02
  • Ionic Framework Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-22

puppeteer features and specs

  • Headless Browsing
    Puppeteer allows headless browsing, which means you can automate and test web applications without opening a browser user interface, resulting in faster execution and lower resource usage.
  • Full Browser Control
    Enables full control over Chrome or Chromium browsers, allowing for comprehensive browser testing and automation, including taking screenshots, generating PDFs, and capturing web pages.
  • Rich API
    Offers a rich set of APIs that can control browsers, manage cookies, intercept network requests, and handle various browser events, making it versatile for different use cases.
  • Active Community
    Highly active open-source community with regular updates and a plethora of plugins and extensions, providing robust support and continuous improvements.
  • Compatibility
    Supports the latest JavaScript features and works seamlessly with popular libraries and frameworks, providing a modern development experience.

Possible disadvantages of puppeteer

  • Restricted to Chrome/Chromium
    Puppeteer is primarily designed to work with Chrome and Chromium browsers, limiting cross-browser testing capabilities compared to other tools that support multiple browsers.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running multiple instances of headless browsers can be resource-intensive in terms of CPU and memory usage, potentially affecting performance on limited hardware.
  • Learning Curve
    Requires some learning curve for developers unfamiliar with browser automation or the Puppeteer API, making initial setup and usage potentially time-consuming.
  • Lacks JavaScript Redaction
    Unlike some other tools, Puppeteer does not natively support JavaScript error redaction, which means developers must manage error handling and debugging themselves.
  • Not Ideal for GUI Tests
    Since Puppeteer is headless by default, it might not be ideal for GUI end-to-end tests that require visual validation, requiring additional tools or configurations to enable full browser displays.

Ionic Framework features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Development
    Ionic allows developers to create applications that work smoothly on both iOS and Android from a single codebase, reducing development time and costs.
  • Rich Pre-Built Components
    Ionic comes with a vast library of pre-built UI components that are customizable, enabling quicker development and a consistent user experience across different devices.
  • Integration with Popular Frameworks
    Ionic can be easily integrated with popular front-end frameworks such as Angular, React, and Vue, providing flexibility for developers to use the tools they are familiar with.
  • Active Community and Ecosystem
    Ionic has a strong and active community, along with extensive documentation and a variety of plugins and third-party extensions that can be utilized to extend app functionalities.
  • Performance Optimization
    Ionic has made significant improvements in performance, particularly with the use of tools like Capacitor, which helps achieve near-native performance for hybrid applications.

Possible disadvantages of Ionic Framework

  • Dependency on Web Technologies
    Since Ionic relies heavily on web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, performance might not be as optimal as fully native apps, especially in graphics-intensive applications.
  • Learning Curve
    While Ionic is easier to pick up for web developers, those unfamiliar with Angular, React, or Vue might face a steep learning curve initially.
  • Limited Access to Native APIs
    Even though Ionic provides plugins through Capacitor and Cordova for accessing native APIs, there might be scenarios where certain native functionalities are not fully supported or require custom development.
  • Larger App Sizes
    Hybrid applications built with Ionic often have larger file sizes compared to native apps due to the overhead of web runtime and additional libraries.
  • Browser Compatibility Issues
    As Ionic apps run inside a WebView, inconsistencies across different browsers and versions can sometimes lead to unexpected behavior, requiring additional testing and debugging efforts.

puppeteer videos

Puppeteer - Video Review

More videos:

  • Review - GameSpot Reviews - Puppeteer
  • Review - CGR Undertow - PUPPETEER review for PlayStation 3

Ionic Framework videos

Why You SHOULD Use the Ionic Framework

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to puppeteer and Ionic Framework)
Automated Testing
100 100%
0% 0
Development Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Browser Testing
100 100%
0% 0
JavaScript Framework
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare puppeteer and Ionic Framework

puppeteer Reviews

Top Selenium Alternatives
Puppeteer offers more direct and tighter integration with Chrome or Chromium through the DevTools Protocol, unlike Selenium which abstracts the browser interaction through WebDriver, making it more versatile across different browsers but potentially less optimized for specific browser internals like those Puppeteer accesses in Chrome.
Source: bugbug.io
Best Data Scraping Tools
It is completely free. Puppeteer is well backed and supported by Google Chrome and hence replacing Selenium and PhantomJS. It automatically installs an efficient, compatible Chromium binary in its setup, therefore reducing the burden of keeping track on your browser.
Puppeteer vs Selenium
If you're looking for a better alternative, try Endtest. It has Puppeteer's speed, it supports Selenium's browsers AND it has all the features that they're missing.
Source: dev.to
Introduction to Headless Browser Testing
The Puppeteer API can be used to take screenshots, create PDFs, navigate pages, and fetch information from pages. We’ll write some example code to see Puppeteer in action.

Ionic Framework Reviews

THE BEST 34 APP DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE IN 2022 LIST
One codebase. Any platform. Now in React and Angular. Ionic Framework is an open-source mobile UI toolkit for building high-quality, cross-platform native and web app experiences. Move faster with a single codebase, running everywhere. Free and open-source, Ionic offers a library of mobile-optimized UI components, gestures, and tools for building fast highly interactive apps.
10 React Native Alternatives
Ionic Framework is a free, open-source mobile UI toolkit used for building high-quality cross-platform applications for Android, iOS, and from the web all from a single codebase.

Social recommendations and mentions

puppeteer might be a bit more popular than Ionic Framework. We know about 106 links to it since March 2021 and only 90 links to Ionic Framework. 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.

puppeteer mentions (106)

  • Top React Testing Libraries in 2025
    Puppeteer is a headless browser automation tool built on Chromium. It allows developers to simulate user interactions, capture screenshots, and perform UI tests with a high degree of accuracy. Puppeteer is particularly useful for testing cross-browser compatibility and visual elements in React applications. Its robust API enables precise control over browser actions, making it a valuable tool for UI testing and... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • End-to-End SEO Testing with Playwright and Lighthouse
    Vitest is a next-generation JavaScript testing framework powered by Vite. It’s an excellent alternative to Jest, offering native TypeScript support, a fast setup, and solid performance. However, while it has an experimental headless browser, it’s not ideal for advanced scenarios like running SEO audits in CI/CD pipelines. Instead, we can pair Vitest with Pupetter, a more mature tool for headless browser automation. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • The Puppeteer Language Experiment
    This project tests how the browser language can be changed with Puppeteer. It implements multiple options to set the language of Chrome and checks each option against BrowserLeaks to see how it affected the JavaScript proeprties and HTTP headers available by the browser. For more information, see my article The Puppeteer Language Experiment on DEV.to. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Scrapy Vs. Crawlee
    In Crawlee, you can scrape JavaScript rendered websites using the built-in headless Puppeteer and Playwright browsers. It is important to note that, by default, Crawlee scrapes in headless mode. If you don't want headless, then just set headless: false. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Sometimes things simply don't work
    I am not in any way associated with the developers at puppeteer, but if you are looking for a way to contribute, they are open source. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
View more

Ionic Framework mentions (90)

  • Top 10 Essential Tools for Android Development
    Ionic is an open-source framework for building cross-platform mobile applications using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It allows developers to build apps for Android, iOS, and the web from a single codebase. Ionic is known for its flexibility and wide range of UI components, making it easy to build modern, responsive apps. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Building a GenAI Fitness App with Gemini
    For the frontend, I chose Ionic and Angular, which enabled me to create a mobile-first app that could be deployed on the web right away while it could also be shipped as native for both iOS and Android. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Design Systems with Web Components
    I was recently able to sit down with some of the core members of Ionic, who also created Stencil a toolchain for building Design Systems and Progressive Web Apps. We talked at great length how typically companies are approaching Ionic from a Design Team and need help building components. As a developer I wanted to talk about the Web Components that are used within the Design System first. There was a decent amount... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Turning HTML, CSS, JS project into an app
    Look into Ionic Framework https://ionicframework.com/ or Cordova. They might be overkill for what you’re trying to do, but they allow you to create cross-platform apps via html/css/js. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Getting Started with PayloadCMS & Vue JS
    Ionic Framework UI Components are used to build a website and then a mobile application is built using Ionic Capacitor. Ionic UI components are not required but are used for UX. The vue js code presented here will work fine in a separate application. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing puppeteer and Ionic Framework, you can also consider the following products

Selenium - Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that.

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Cypress.io - Slow, difficult and unreliable testing for anything that runs in a browser. Install Cypress in seconds and take the pain out of front-end testing.

Flutter - Build beautiful native apps in record time 🚀

Playwright - Playwright is automation software for Chromium, Firefox, Webkit using the Node.js library having a single API in place.

Apache Cordova - Platform for building native mobile applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript