A
list of (almost) all headless web browsers in existence
A web browser without a graphical user interface, controlled programmatically. Used for automation, testing, and other purposes.
Browser
engines
These browser engines fully render web pages or run JavaScript in a virtual DOM
| Name |
About |
Supported Languages |
License |
| Chromium Embedded Framework |
CEF is a open source project based on the Google Chromium project. |
JavaScript |
BSD |
| Erik |
Headless browser on top of Kanna and WebKit. |
Swift |
MIT |
| jBrowserDriver |
A Selenium-compatible headless browser which is written in pure Java. WebKit-based. Works with any of the Selenium Server bindings. |
Java |
Not specified |
| PhantomJS |
PhantomJS is a headless WebKit scriptable with a JavaScript API. It has fast and native support for various web standards: DOM handling, CSS selector, JSON, Canvas, and SVG. |
JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Java, C#, Haskell, Objective-C, Perl, PHP, R(via Selenium) |
BSD 3-Clause |
| Splash |
Splash is a javascript rendering service with an HTTP API. It's a lightweight browser with an HTTP API, implemented in Python using Twisted and QT. |
Any |
BSD 3-Clause |
Multi
drivers
These libraries can control multiple browser engines (typically using Selenium)
| Name |
About |
Supported Languages |
License |
| CasperJS |
CasperJS is an open source navigation scripting & testing utility written in Javascript for the PhantomJS WebKit headless browser and SlimerJS (Gecko). |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| Geb |
Geb is a Groovy interface to WebDriver. |
Groovy |
Apache |
| Selenium |
Selenium is a suite of tools to automate web browsers across many platforms. |
JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Java, C#, Haskell, Objective-C, Perl, PHP, R |
Apache |
| Splinter |
Splinter is an open source tool for testing web applications using Python. It lets you automate browser actions, such as visiting URLs and interacting with their items. |
Python |
- |
| SST |
SST (selenium-simple-test) is a web test framework that uses Python to generate functional browser-based tests. |
Python |
- |
| Watir |
The most elegant way to use Selenium WebDriver with ruby. |
Ruby |
MIT |
PhantomJS
drivers
These libraries control PhantomJS
| Name |
About |
Supported Languages |
License |
| Ghostbuster |
Automated browser testing via phantom.js, with all of the pain taken out! That means you get a real browser, with a real DOM, and can do real testing! |
JavaScript |
Not specified |
| jedi-crawler |
Lightsabing Node/PhantomJS crawler; scrape dynamic content : without the hassle |
JavaScript |
Not specified |
| Lotte |
Lotte is a headless, automated testing framework built on top of PhantomJS and inspired by Ghostbuster. |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| phantompy |
Phantompy is a headless WebKit engine with powerful pythonic api build on top of Qt5 Webkit |
Python |
LGPL-2.1 |
| X-RAY |
Supports strings, arrays, arrays of objects, nested object structures, selector API, pagination, crawler, concurrency, throttles, delays, timeouts, and pluggable drivers (PhantomJS, HTTP) |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| Horseman |
Promise based Node.js module for PhantomJS. Features chainable API, understandable control-flow, support for multiple tabs, and built-in jQuery. |
JavaScript |
MIT |
Chromium
drivers
These libraries control Chromium
| Name |
About |
Supported Languages |
License |
| Awesomium |
Chromium-based headless browser engine |
C++, .NET |
Free/Commercial |
| Headless Chromium |
Chromium feature activated with the --headlesss flag, currently availible in the nightly build of Chromium, not yet released |
C++ |
Opensource |
| Puppeteer |
Headless Chrome Node API from the Chrome DevTools team |
JavaScript |
Apache |
| chrome-remote-interface |
Chrome Debugging Protocol interface for Node.js |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| Chromy |
A library for operating headless chrome. |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| chromedp |
A faster, simpler way to drive browsers (Chrome, Edge, Safari, Android, etc) without external dependencies (ie, Selenium, PhantomJS, etc) using the Chrome Debugging Protocol. |
Go |
MIT |
Webkit
drivers
These drivers control an in-process instance of Webkit
| Name |
About |
Supported Languages |
License |
| Browserjet |
Runs a custom build of webkit, controlled by node.js interface. |
JavaScript |
Not specified |
| ghost.py |
ghost.py is a webkit web client written in python. |
Python |
MIT |
| headless_browser |
Headless browser based on WebKit written in C++. |
C++ |
Not Specified |
| Jabba-Webkit |
Jabba's headless webkit browser for scraping AJAX-powered webpages. |
Python |
Not specified |
| Jasmine-Headless-Webkit |
jasmine-headless-webkit uses the QtWebKit widget to run your specs without needing to render a pixel. |
Python, JavaScript, Ruby |
Free |
| Python-Webkit |
Python-Webkit is a python extension to Webkit to add full, complete access to Webkit's DOM |
Python |
GNU |
| Spynner |
Programmatic web browsing module with AJAX support for Python |
Python |
Not specified |
| Webloop |
Scriptable, headless WebKit with a Go API. |
Go |
BSD 3-Clause |
|
wkhtmltopdf wkhtmltox wkhtmltoimage |
Command line tool rendering HTML into PDF and other image formats. |
shell, C |
LGPLv3 |
| WKZombie |
Functional headless browser (with JSON support) for iOS using WebKit and hpple/libxml2. |
Swift |
MIT |
Other
drivers
These libraries control lesser known browsers or OS-provided web libraries
| Name |
About |
Supported Languages |
License |
| Nightmare |
Nightmare is a high-level browser automation library built as an easier alternative to PhantomJS. It runs on the Electron engine. |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| grope |
A RubyCocoa interface to the macOS WebKit Framework |
RubyCocoa |
MIT |
| SlimerJS |
SlimerJS is similar to PhantomJs, except that it runs Gecko, the browser engine of Mozilla Firefox, instead of Webkit (And it is not yet truly headless). |
JavaScript |
Mozilla 2.0 |
| SpecterJS |
A scriptable headless Internet Explorer port of PhantomJS. |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| trifleJS |
A headless Internet Explorer browser using the .NET WebBrowser Class with a Javascript API running on the V8 engine. |
JavaScript |
MIT |
Fake
Browser Engine
These libraries are typically naive or HTML-only browsers
| Name |
About |
Supported Languages |
License |
| AngleSharp |
.Net Http Parsing Library |
.NET |
MIT |
| benv |
Stub a browser environment in node.js and headlessly test your client-side code. |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| browser.rb |
Headless Ruby browser on top of Nokogiri and TheRubyRacer |
Ruby |
Not specified |
| BrowserKit |
BrowserKit simulates the behavior of a web browser. |
PHP |
MIT |
| DamonJS |
Bot navigating urls and doing tasks. |
JavaScript |
Apache |
| Headless |
Headless browser support for fast web acceptance testing in .Net |
.NET |
MIT |
| HeadlessBrowser |
A very miniature headless browser, for testing the DOM on Node.js |
JavaScript |
Not specified |
| HtmlUnit |
HtmlUnit is a "GUI-Less browser for Java programs". |
Java |
Apache |
| Jaunt |
Java Web Scraping & Automation API |
Java |
Not specified |
| JSDom |
A JavaScript implementation of the WHATWG DOM and HTML standards, for use with Node.js. |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| MechanicalSoup |
A Python library for automating interaction with websites. |
Python |
MIT |
| mechanize |
Stateful programmatic web browsing. |
Python |
BSD 3-Clause, ZPL 2.1 |
| node-as-browser |
Create a browser-like environment within Node.js |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| RoboBrowser |
A simple, Pythonic library for browsing the web without a standalone web browser. |
Python |
BSD 3-Clause |
| SimpleBrowser |
A flexible and intuitive web browser engine designed for automation tasks. Built on the .Net 4 framework. |
.NET |
BSD 3-Clause |
| stanislaw |
Naive, mechanize-like HTML parser/form driver. |
Python |
Not specified |
| twill |
Twill is a simple language that interacts with basic HTML pages (no JavaScript support). |
Python |
MIT |
| WeasyPrint |
WeasyPrint is a visual rendering engine for HTML and CSS that can export to PDF. It aims to support web standards for printing. |
Python |
BSD 3-Clause |
| WWW::Mechanize |
Headless browser for Perl with many plugins and extensions, notably Test::WWW:Mechanize for testing |
Perl |
Perl 5 |
| X-RAY |
Supports strings, arrays, arrays of objects, nested object structures, selector API, pagination, crawler, concurrency, throttles, delays, timeouts, and pluggable drivers (PhantomJS, HTTP) |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| Xidel (Internet Tools) |
An XQuery-based cli web scraper for static X/HTML pages and JSON-APIs. |
FreePascal, XQuery |
GPL-2 |
| Zombie.js |
Zombie.js is a lightweight framework for testing client-side JavaScript code in a simulated environment. No browser required. |
JavaScript |
MIT |
Runs
in a browser
| Name |
About |
Supported Languages |
License |
| DalekJS |
Automated cross browser testing with JavaScript. |
JavaScript |
MIT |
| Sahi |
Sahi is a cross-browser automation/testing tool with the facility to record and playback scripts. |
JavaScript, Java, Ruby, PHP |
Apache / Commercial |
| WatiN |
Web Application Testing In .Net |
.NET |
Apache 2.0 |
Misc
tools
| Name |
About |
Supported Languages |
License |
| browser-launcher |
Detect and launch browser versions, headlessly or otherwise |
JavaScript |
MIT |