What Is Puppeteer

November 16, 2021
0

Puppeteer vs Selenium: Core Differences | BrowserStack

Even though both Puppeteer and Selenium serve the same purpose of facilitating automation testing, a comparison of them is helpful for developers and testers seeking to choose the right tool for their requirements, whether project-based or long-term. This article will explore their strengths as automation test frameworks and allow readers to make an informed choice between them. Introduction to PuppeteerPuppeteer is a Node library that provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome over the DevTools Protocol. Also known as a Headless Chrome Node API, it is useful for automating the Chrome browser to run website damentally, Puppeteer is an automation tool and not a test tool. This simply means it is incredibly popular for use cases such as scraping, generating PDFs, etc. Puppeteer uses Chrome DevTools protocol and the debugger protocol for Selenium is JSONWire. Both are used to perform clicks. In the case of practice Puppeteer and Selenium, use the same code for performing ominent Features of PuppeteerThe most prominent features supported by Puppeteer are as follows:Screenshot TestingPerformance TestingWeb ScrapingEasy AutomationLimitations of PuppeteerThe complexity and automation context are changing with each passing day and hence, one tool might not be the solution for all. Puppeteer has some limitations like, it supports only Chrome browser. Puppeteer for Firefox is a work in troduction to SeleniumSelenium automates browsers. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes but is certainly not limited to just that. It supports numerous features that are helpful for automation testing. Selenium supports multiple programming languages and platforms. It also supports testing on multiple major browsers in global, let’s understand the pros and cons of SeleniumPros of Selenium:Open source and freely availableIntegrated with CI, and AgileSupports cross-browser, a wide range of OS and programming languagesHas huge community support along with a large library and extensionsCons of Selenium:Steep learning curveDoesn’t support built-in image comparisonExplore the various features of Selenium with this Selenium WebDriver tutorial. Try Selenium Testing for FreeMarket Trends on Selenium and PuppeteerThe image below depicts that Selenium’s popularity is long-established and keeps growing. That doesn’t imply that Puppeteer is not popular. It is especially popular when it comes to automating the Chrome are unique in their own ways Selenium does take an edge over Puppeteer in terms of overall popularity and urceSetup and Test Implementation of Puppeteer and SeleniumSelenium and Puppeteer are the two automation testing tools that can be directly installed using install Selenium, type the following command in the terminal:npm install selenium-webdriverAnother way is to study and use the Selenium Installation here. Here, creating a driver and using it is easy—the syntax is verbose compared to the alternatives but still pretty straightforward:The example below located the Yahoo sign up page using the Xpath (“);
ndElement((“//input[@id=’usernamereg-firstName’]”)). sendKeys(“Your-Name”); // Will send values to First Name tab
ndElement((“//input[@id=’usernamereg-lastName’]”)). sendKeys(“Your-Last_name”); //xpath for last name box
ndElement((“//input[@id=’usernamereg-yid’]”)). sendKeys(“”); //xpath for email box
Now, on to Puppeteer. To install Puppeteer, type the command below in the terminal:npm install puppeteerNow, let’s locate the same sign-up page using the Puppeteer syntax:await (‘);
await (‘button’);
await (‘#sign-up’, ‘your_name’);
await (‘[type=email]’, ‘your_email’);People also read: How to Build and Execute Selenium ProjectsPuppeteer vs Selenium: Core DifferencesPuppeteerSeleniumPuppeteer was developed by Google and runs the script on ChromiumSelenium is the library that is used to automate Chrome. This library is open-source and provides a high-level API to control ChromeIs a libraryIs a web framework for testing web applicationsWorks only with Chrome or Chromium and does not support other browsers. Supports multiple browsers like Chrome, IE, Firefox, Safari, etc. Cross-platform support is provided across all the available browsersWas released in 2017Was released in 2004Supports only Node. jsSupports multiple languages like Python, Ruby, Javascript, Java, pports only web automationSupports web automation and mobile automationScreenshot can be taken of both PDFs and imagesScreenshot can be taken of both PDFs and images only in Selenium 4Selenium or Puppeteer: Which is the preferred one? Considering all the above factors, Puppeteer is the go-to tool if devs and testers are specifically working with Google Browser alone. But considering the fact that cross-browser testing must be conducted across platforms and using multiple programming languages, Selenium is the best fit for automation testing. It comes with library support for multiple programming languages, drivers for different browsers, and is not always about cross-browser support or platform support, sometimes other functionalities like record and playback for testing web applications matter a lot. That’s something Selenium supports. The code can be re-used, and also it is loaded with packages and test suites. It is considered to be a tool that is the best fit for Automation testing. As ease of access and configuration is pretty simple, one doesn’t have to download Selenium like a piece of software. But they might need some of its components to run tests on automated browser instances on their own get a hang of this, simply head over to Automate Documentation. Pick a language and/or framework you typically work with. Follow the steps to install the components required, and run a couple of sample tests. It is easy to acquire a functional understanding of Selenium automation testing in no to test websites on real browsers and devices? Take a look at BrowserStack Automate, which offers instant access to a cloud Selenium Grid and 2000+ browsers and real desktop and mobile running the code detailed above using Selenium. Bear in mind that Selenium tests must be run on a real device cloud to get completely accurate results. BrowserStack’s cloud Selenium grid of 2000+ real browsers and devices allows testers to automated visual UI tests in real user conditions. Simply sign up, select a device-browser-OS combination, and start running tests for free.
Quick start | Tools for Web Developers

Quick start | Tools for Web Developers

Getting Started
Installation
To use Puppeteer in your project, run:
npm i puppeteer
# or “yarn add puppeteer”
puppeteer-core
Since version 1. 7. 0 we publish the puppeteer-core package,
a version of Puppeteer that doesn’t download any browser by default.
npm i puppeteer-core
# or “yarn add puppeteer-core”
puppeteer-core is intended to be a lightweight version of Puppeteer for launching an existing browser installation or for connecting to a remote one. Be sure that the version of puppeteer-core you install is compatible with the
browser you intend to connect to.
See puppeteer vs puppeteer-core.
Usage
Puppeteer follows the latest maintenance LTS version of Node.
Puppeteer will be familiar to people using other browser testing frameworks. You create an instance
of Browser, open pages, and then manipulate them with Puppeteer’s API.
Example – navigating to and saving a screenshot as
Save file as
const puppeteer = require(‘puppeteer’);
(async () => {
const browser = await ();
const page = await wPage();
await (”);
await reenshot({ path: ”});
await ();})();
Execute script on the command line
node
Puppeteer sets an initial page size to 800×600px, which defines the screenshot size. The page size can be customized with tViewport().
Example – create a PDF.
await (”, {
waitUntil: ‘networkidle2’, });
await ({ path: ”, format: ‘a4’});
See () for more information about creating pdfs.
Example – evaluate script in the context of the page
// Get the “viewport” of the page, as reported by the page.
const dimensions = await page. evaluate(() => {
return {
width: ientWidth,
height: ientHeight,
deviceScaleFactor: vicePixelRatio, };});
(‘Dimensions:’, dimensions);
See Page. evaluate() for more information on evaluate and related methods like evaluateOnNewDocument and exposeFunction.
Default runtime settings
1. Uses Headless mode
Puppeteer launches Chromium in headless mode. To launch a full version of Chromium, set the headless option when launching a browser:
const browser = await ({ headless: false}); // default is true
2. Runs a bundled version of Chromium
By default, Puppeteer downloads and uses a specific version of Chromium so its API
is guaranteed to work out of the box. To use Puppeteer with a different version of Chrome or Chromium,
pass in the executable’s path when creating a Browser instance:
const browser = await ({ executablePath: ‘/path/to/Chrome’});
You can also use Puppeteer with Firefox Nightly (experimental support). See () for more information.
See this article for a description of the differences between Chromium and Chrome. This article describes some differences for Linux users.
3. Creates a fresh user profile
Puppeteer creates its own browser user profile which it cleans up on every run.
Next steps
Learn more about headless Chrome
Look over the examples.
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4. 0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2. 0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2021-09-22 UTC.
[{
“type”: “thumb-down”,
“id”: “missingTheInformationINeed”,
“label”:”Missing the information I need”}, {
“id”: “tooComplicatedTooManySteps”,
“label”:”Too complicated / too many steps”}, {
“id”: “outOfDate”,
“label”:”Out of date”}, {
“id”: “samplesCodeIssue”,
“label”:”Samples / code issue”}, {
“id”: “otherDown”,
“label”:”Other”}]
“type”: “thumb-up”,
“id”: “easyToUnderstand”,
“label”:”Easy to understand”}, {
“id”: “solvedMyProblem”,
“label”:”Solved my problem”}, {
“id”: “otherUp”,
“label”:”Other”}]
Puppeteer | Tools for Web Developers

Puppeteer | Tools for Web Developers

Puppeteer | Tools for Web Developers | Google Developers
Fundamentals
Tools
Home
Chrome DevTools
Lighthouse
Puppeteer
Workbox
Chrome User Experience Report
Updates
Case Studies
Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control
headless Chrome or Chromium over the
DevTools Protocol. It
can also be configured to use full (non-headless) Chrome or Chromium.
What can I do?
Most things that you can do manually in the browser can be done using Puppeteer! Here are a few examples to get you started:
Generate screenshots and PDFs of pages.
Crawl a SPA (Single-Page Application) and generate pre-rendered content (i. e. “SSR” (Server-Side Rendering)).
Automate form submission, UI testing, keyboard input, etc.
Create an up-to-date, automated testing environment. Run your tests directly in the latest version of Chrome using the latest JavaScript and browser features.
Capture a timeline trace of your site to help diagnose performance issues.
Test Chrome Extensions.
Next steps
Install Puppeteer and Get Started!
Look over the examples.
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4. 0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2. 0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2021-02-11 UTC.
[{
“type”: “thumb-down”,
“id”: “missingTheInformationINeed”,
“label”:”Missing the information I need”}, {
“id”: “tooComplicatedTooManySteps”,
“label”:”Too complicated / too many steps”}, {
“id”: “outOfDate”,
“label”:”Out of date”}, {
“id”: “samplesCodeIssue”,
“label”:”Samples / code issue”}, {
“id”: “otherDown”,
“label”:”Other”}]
“type”: “thumb-up”,
“id”: “easyToUnderstand”,
“label”:”Easy to understand”}, {
“id”: “solvedMyProblem”,
“label”:”Solved my problem”}, {
“id”: “otherUp”,
“label”:”Other”}]

Frequently Asked Questions about what is puppeteer

How do puppeteers work?

To use Puppeteer with a different version of Chrome or Chromium, pass in the executable’s path when creating a Browser instance: const browser = await puppeteer. launch({ executablePath: ‘/path/to/Chrome’ }); You can also use Puppeteer with Firefox Nightly (experimental support).