Table of contents
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.
As of now, PhantomJS is no longer actively maintained, and the developer community has largely transitioned to using more modern alternatives like headless versions of Chromium or Firefox, such as Puppeteer or Playwright. These alternatives offer better support, more features, and are actively maintained. Therefore, while PhantomJS was good in its time, it is generally not recommended for new projects.
We have collected here some useful links to help you find out if Phantomjs is good.
Check the traffic stats of Phantomjs on SimilarWeb. The key metrics to look for are: monthly visits, average visit duration, pages per visit, and traffic by country. Moreoever, check the traffic sources. For example "Direct" traffic is a good sign.
Check the "Domain Rating" of Phantomjs on Ahrefs. The domain rating is a measure of the strength of a website's backlink profile on a scale from 0 to 100. It shows the strength of Phantomjs's backlink profile compared to the other websites. In most cases a domain rating of 60+ is considered good and 70+ is considered very good.
Check the "Domain Authority" of Phantomjs on MOZ. A website's domain authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). It is based on a 100-point logarithmic scale, with higher scores corresponding to a greater likelihood of ranking. This is another useful metric to check if a website is good.
The latest comments about Phantomjs on Reddit. This can help you find out how popualr the product is and what people think about it.
Install Phantomjs and see if that improves things. Source: over 2 years ago
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 / over 2 years ago
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 / over 2 years ago
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
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: about 3 years ago
For this project we will need some extra binaries ( PhantomJS in particular) to take the screenshots. We’ll also use ImageMagick, but that is provided by AWS by default in the Lambda image, so we don’t package it separately. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
ERROR: [iq.com] apvtge3eng: PhantomJS executable not found in PATH, download it from http://phantomjs.org. Source: over 3 years ago
I'm using PhantomJS v1.4.1 to load some web pages. I don't have access to their server-side, I just getting links pointing to them. I'm using obsolete version of Phantom because I need to support Adobe Flash on that web pages. Source: over 3 years ago
I want to use PhantomJS in Python. I googled this problem but couldn't find proper solutions. Source: over 3 years ago
Check out phantom.js. Https://phantomjs.org/ Https://www.npmjs.com/package/phantom-html-to-pdf. Source: over 3 years ago
In our project, we’ve been running system tests (then called rather "Feature tests") since around 2016. System tests use a real browser in the background and test all layers of a Rails application at once: from the database all the way up to the nuances of JavaScript loaded together with the web pages. Back then, we wrote our system tests using Capybara with Poltergeist, a driver that ran a headless Phantom JS... - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago
PhantomJS, once a pioneering tool in the realm of headless browser testing, debuted as a scriptable headless browser using the WebKit layout engine. It quickly gained traction for its capabilities in automating web page interactions and its support for various web standards. Its scriptable nature and robust features for testing and automating browser behaviors made it an invaluable asset for developers seeking to integrate with Continuous Integration (CI) tools.
Popularity & Usage:
In technical discussions, PhantomJS is frequently acknowledged as a once-popular choice for handling headless browser requirements. Notably, it is still mentioned in contexts such as improving YouTube bandwidth issues or serving as a fallback for SEO optimization in Single Page Applications (SPA). The tool also maintains a niche following for specific use cases like creating serverless screenshot services on AWS Lambda and converting web pages to PDFs.
Articles frequently cite PhantomJS as a powerful option among tools like Selenium and other modern headless browsers. Its scriptability through JavaScript (e.g., the CasperJS library) and ease of use via command line interfaces makes it suitable for complex web testing environments. This adaptability remains one of its strong suits against newer competitors.
Technical Challenges & Limitations:
However, the discontinuation of PhantomJS's active development in 2018 indicates a shift in the industry preference towards other emergent tools like Puppeteer and Headless Chrome. These tools offer more advanced features and ongoing support, aligning better with modern web development's evolving demands.
Technical community discussions frequently highlight PhantomJS's detection issues, particularly in scenarios involving automated browser environments. For instance, services like Cloudflare can detect PhantomJS-specific attributes, leading to potential web access blockages. These issues point to the necessity for developers to implement alternative strategies to circumvent automated detection mechanisms in security-conscious environments.
Shift to Modern Alternatives:
With the increasing popularity of tools like Puppeteer and Headless Chrome, many in the industry have transitioned their testing frameworks. Developers cite their more comprehensive APIs and reliable support for the latest web standards as primary factors. This transition often requires significant overhauls to existing systems, previously reliant on PhantomJS, which now need modernization to maintain competitiveness and security.
Despite its gradual decline in mainstream usage, PhantomJS still holds value in certain legacy systems or specific workflows that have yet to find comparable alternatives. Though not at the forefront of current headless browsing technology, PhantomJS exemplifies an essential phase in the evolution of web development tools.
In conclusion, PhantomJS remains a significant part of web testing history, and while largely supplanted by more modern solutions, it continues to be an indispensable tool in specialized or legacy environments. Its impact on headless browser testing persists, serving as a reminder of its pioneering role in the realm of automated testing tools.
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