@playwright/browser-chromium

What is @playwright/browser-chromium?

@playwright/browser-chromium is a Node.js library that provides a high-level API to automate Chromium-based browsers. It is part of the Playwright project, which is designed for end-to-end testing and web scraping. The package allows you to control a Chromium browser programmatically, enabling tasks such as automated testing, web scraping, and browser automation.

What are @playwright/browser-chromium's main functionalities?

Browser Automation

This feature allows you to automate browser actions such as navigating to a URL, taking screenshots, and closing the browser.

const { chromium } = require('@playwright/browser-chromium');
(async () => {
  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://example.com');
  await page.screenshot({ path: 'example.png' });
  await browser.close();
})();

Web Scraping

This feature enables you to scrape web content by navigating to a webpage and extracting its HTML content.

const { chromium } = require('@playwright/browser-chromium');
(async () => {
  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://example.com');
  const content = await page.content();
  console.log(content);
  await browser.close();
})();

Automated Testing

This feature is useful for automated testing, allowing you to verify that web pages behave as expected.

const { chromium } = require('@playwright/browser-chromium');
(async () => {
  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://example.com');
  const title = await page.title();
  console.log(title === 'Example Domain'); // true
  await browser.close();
})();

Other packages similar to @playwright/browser-chromium

puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. It is similar to @playwright/browser-chromium in that it allows for browser automation, web scraping, and automated testing. However, Playwright offers more advanced features like multi-browser support and better handling of modern web applications.

selenium-webdriver

Selenium WebDriver is a popular tool for automating web applications for testing purposes. It supports multiple browsers and programming languages. Compared to @playwright/browser-chromium, Selenium is more mature but may lack some of the modern features and ease of use that Playwright offers.

cypress

Cypress is a JavaScript end-to-end testing framework that aims to make testing fast, easy, and reliable. It is similar to @playwright/browser-chromium in its focus on end-to-end testing but is more opinionated and integrated, offering a more streamlined experience at the cost of flexibility.

README

@playwright/browser-chromium

This package automatically installs Chromium browser for Playwright library. If you want to write end-to-end tests, we recommend @playwright/test.