Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

puppeteer VS PageSpeed Insights

Compare puppeteer VS PageSpeed Insights and see what are their differences

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puppeteer logo puppeteer

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

PageSpeed Insights logo PageSpeed Insights

PageSpeed is addon for ...
  • puppeteer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-02
  • PageSpeed Insights Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-02

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.

PageSpeed Insights features and specs

  • Comprehensive Analysis
    PageSpeed Insights provides a thorough analysis of both mobile and desktop versions of your website, offering insights into performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO metrics.
  • Actionable Recommendations
    The tool offers specific, actionable recommendations to improve page load times and overall site performance, making it easier for developers to implement necessary changes.
  • Integration with Other Google Tools
    PageSpeed Insights seamlessly integrates with other Google tools such as Google Analytics and Search Console, providing a more holistic view of your website's performance.
  • User Experience Metrics
    It measures Core Web Vitals, which are essential for understanding user experience metrics like loading time, interactivity, and visual stability.
  • Free to Use
    The tool is completely free, making it accessible for developers, businesses, and individuals without any associated cost.

Possible disadvantages of PageSpeed Insights

  • Limited Historical Data
    PageSpeed Insights doesn't maintain historical data or trends, making it difficult to track progress over time directly within the tool.
  • Lack of Advanced Features
    While it's excellent for basic to intermediate analysis, it lacks some advanced features and customization options found in paid tools like GTmetrix or WebPageTest.
  • Potential for Misinterpretation
    The results and recommendations can sometimes be technical and difficult for non-developers to understand, leading to potential misinterpretation or incorrect implementation.
  • Server Dependency
    The tool's performance score can be influenced by server locations and current network conditions, which may not always provide a consistent assessment.
  • Lag in Updates
    There can be a lag in updates to reflect the most recent changes in web development practices and Google’s own algorithms, meaning the tool might not always offer the latest best practices.

Analysis of puppeteer

Overall verdict

  • Puppeteer is considered a strong choice for developers seeking a robust and efficient way to automate browser tasks. It is particularly favored in situations where headless browser actions are required due to its rich feature set and its solid support from both the community and its active development team. However, it may not be the best choice for those looking for cross-browser testing since it focuses specifically on Chrome or Chromium.

Why this product is good

  • Puppeteer is a Node.js library that provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome or Chromium browsers. It is widely appreciated for its speed, reliability, and comprehensive feature set that makes it easy to automate tasks like web scraping, automated testing, and taking screenshots. Users benefit from the ability to programmatically control browser actions, which can be useful for testing user interactions and rendering dynamic content.

Recommended for

  • Web scraping projects that need to render dynamic web pages or deal with JavaScript-heavy sites.
  • Automated testing scenarios that involve simulating user interactions and verifying UI changes.
  • Performance analysis and monitoring of JavaScript execution in a controlled environment.
  • Developers who need to generate PDFs or capture screenshots from web pages programmatically.

Analysis of PageSpeed Insights

Overall verdict

  • Yes, PageSpeed Insights is considered to be a good and effective tool for assessing and optimizing web page performance.

Why this product is good

  • PageSpeed Insights, provided by Google, is a valuable tool for analyzing the performance of web pages. It offers specific suggestions to improve page load times, which is crucial for both user experience and search engine optimization. It evaluates both mobile and desktop versions of a website and provides actionable insights tailored for each. The tool is also easy to use and integrates easily into the workflow of developers and site owners.

Recommended for

  • Web developers looking to optimize their sites for better performance.
  • SEO specialists who want to ensure that their pages load quickly and efficiently.
  • Site owners eager to improve user experience by understanding how their sites perform on different devices.
  • Anyone interested in identifying and resolving issues that can slow down their web pages.

puppeteer videos

Puppeteer - Video Review

More videos:

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

PageSpeed Insights videos

The New Google PageSpeed Insights & How To Use It

More videos:

  • Review - Ezoic Site Speed Accelerator Review — 100 Google PageSpeed Insights Scores on Mobile and Desktop?

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to puppeteer and PageSpeed Insights)
Automated Testing
100 100%
0% 0
Website Monitoring
0 0%
100% 100
Browser Testing
100 100%
0% 0
Performance Monitoring
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 PageSpeed Insights

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.

PageSpeed Insights Reviews

We have no reviews of PageSpeed Insights yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

PageSpeed Insights might be a bit more popular than puppeteer. We know about 112 links to it since March 2021 and only 106 links to puppeteer. 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 / 3 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 / 3 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 / about 1 year 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 / about 1 year 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

PageSpeed Insights mentions (112)

  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    Google PageSpeed Insights: Tests your site and provides optimization suggestions. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • How to Create an Awesome Landing Page 💻 📱 with Tailwind CSS(Step-by-Step guide)
    Monitoring and Profiling: Use tools like Google's PageSpeed Insights or Web.dev Measure to analyze your page's performance and get actionable recommendations. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Best Resources For Web Developers 💻 [HTML + CSS + JavaScript]
    Google PageSpeed Insights - Analyze the performance of your web pages and get suggestions for improvement. Website: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Being sued for not complying with WCAG 2.1 AA standards
    Try Google's Lighthouse test instead (aka PageSpeed Insights). It's primarily for testing performance but also gives a score for accessibility, with tips and links to articles on how to solve any issues it detects. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Enable text compression using React, Webpack and Apache
    Const CompressionPlugin = require('compression-webpack-plugin');... plugins: [ new CompressionPlugin({ filename: "[path].gz[query]", algorithm: "gzip", test: /\.(js|css)$/i, }),... When I used page insights to check how fast my webpage loads, it looks like my gz files aren't recognized, or at least one of them isn't recognized. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing puppeteer and PageSpeed Insights, 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.

GTmetrix - GTmetrix is a free tool that analyzes your page's speed performance. Using PageSpeed and YSlow, GTmetrix generates scores for your pages and offers actionable recommendations on how to fix them.

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.

Google Lighthouse - Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages.

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

WebPagetest - Run a free website speed test from multiple locations around the globe using real browsers...