Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

puppeteer VS PhearJS

Compare puppeteer VS PhearJS and see what are their differences

puppeteer logo puppeteer

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

PhearJS logo PhearJS

Render any dynamic Javascript webpage to JSON with PhantomJS.
  • puppeteer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-02
  • PhearJS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-10-17

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.

PhearJS features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    PhearJS provides an easy-to-use interface for web scraping, making it accessible to developers with varying levels of expertise.
  • JavaScript Rendering
    It can render JavaScript-heavy websites, which allows it to scrape modern sites that rely heavily on client-side scripting.
  • Proxy Support
    PhearJS supports the use of proxies, which can help in bypassing rate limits and accessing geo-restricted content.
  • Customizable
    The platform allows for customization in the scraping process, offering flexibility to users in handling various web scraping requirements.

Possible disadvantages of PhearJS

  • Limited Control
    While PhearJS is easy to use, the abstraction may limit control over some advanced settings compared to more code-intensive solutions.
  • Dependency on Phear.io
    Relying on a third-party service means users are dependent on the availability and reliability of Phear.io’s infrastructure.
  • Potential Cost
    Depending on usage, the cost of using PhearJS can add up, especially for large-scale scraping operations.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    Although it is generally easy to use, mastering advanced features may require time and experience.

puppeteer videos

Puppeteer - Video Review

More videos:

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

PhearJS videos

No PhearJS videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to puppeteer and PhearJS)
Automated Testing
91 91%
9% 9
Browser Testing
88 88%
12% 12
Browser Automation
100 100%
0% 0
Testing
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 PhearJS

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.

PhearJS Reviews

We have no reviews of PhearJS yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, puppeteer seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 106 times since March 2021. 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 / 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
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PhearJS mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of PhearJS yet. Tracking of PhearJS recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing puppeteer and PhearJS, 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.

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.

Robot framework - Robot Framework is a generic test automation framework for acceptance testing and acceptance...

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

Screenster - 10x faster UI testing without a line of code.

Apify - Apify is a web scraping and automation platform that can turn any website into an API.