puppeteer-core
Advanced tools
The puppeteer-core package is a version of Puppeteer, a Node library which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. It is intended to be a lightweight version that can be used when you want to bring your own browser. It does not download any browsers by default, unlike the full puppeteer package.
Page Automation
Automate and control a web page, including navigation, screenshot taking, and DOM manipulation.
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({executablePath: '/path/to/your/Chrome'});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');
await page.screenshot({path: 'example.png'});
await browser.close();
})();Form Submission
Automate form submissions by typing into fields and clicking buttons.
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({executablePath: '/path/to/your/Chrome'});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com/login');
await page.type('#username', 'myUsername');
await page.type('#password', 'myPassword');
await page.click('#submit');
await page.waitForNavigation();
await browser.close();
})();Web Scraping
Extract data from web pages by running JavaScript in the context of the page.
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({executablePath: '/path/to/your/Chrome'});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');
const data = await page.evaluate(() => {
return document.querySelector('h1').textContent;
});
console.log(data);
await browser.close();
})();PDF Generation
Generate PDFs of web pages for offline viewing or archiving.
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({executablePath: '/path/to/your/Chrome'});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com', {waitUntil: 'networkidle0'});
await page.pdf({path: 'example.pdf', format: 'A4'});
await browser.close();
})();Automated Testing
Perform automated testing on web applications, including end-to-end tests, performance testing, and more.
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({executablePath: '/path/to/your/Chrome', headless: false});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');
// Perform various tests, like checking if a button exists
const buttonExists = await page.$('button') !== null;
console.assert(buttonExists, 'Button should exist on the page');
await browser.close();
})();Playwright is a Node library to automate the Chromium, WebKit, and Firefox browsers with a single API. It is similar to puppeteer-core but provides support for multiple browsers out of the box. It also offers additional features like network interception and emulation capabilities.
Selenium WebDriver is one of the most well-known tools for automated web testing. It supports multiple browsers and languages, making it a versatile choice for web automation. Compared to puppeteer-core, Selenium is more mature and has a larger community but can be slower and more complex to set up.
Nightmare is a high-level browser automation library. It is built on top of Electron, which is a framework for creating native applications with web technologies. Nightmare is designed to be simpler and more approachable than Puppeteer, but it is less powerful and only works with Electron's version of Chromium.
Cypress is a front-end testing tool built for the modern web. It is both a library for writing automated tests and a test runner that can execute them. Cypress is more focused on testing than general browser automation and provides a rich interactive interface for developing tests.
Puppeteer is a Node.js library which provides a high-level API to control Chrome/Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. Puppeteer runs in headless mode by default, but can be configured to run in full (non-headless) Chrome/Chromium.
Most things that you can do manually in the browser can be done using Puppeteer! Here are a few examples to get you started:
To use Puppeteer in your project, run:
npm i puppeteer
# or `yarn add puppeteer`
# or `pnpm i puppeteer`
When you install Puppeteer, it automatically downloads a recent version of
Chromium (~170MB macOS, ~282MB Linux, ~280MB Windows) that is
guaranteed to work
with Puppeteer. For a version of Puppeteer without installation, see
puppeteer-core.
Puppeteer uses several defaults that can be customized through configuration files.
For example, to change the default cache directory Puppeteer uses to install
browsers, you can add a .puppeteerrc.cjs (or puppeteer.config.cjs) at the
root of your application with the contents
const {join} = require('path');
/**
* @type {import("puppeteer").Configuration}
*/
module.exports = {
// Changes the cache location for Puppeteer.
cacheDirectory: join(__dirname, '.cache', 'puppeteer'),
};
After adding the configuration file, you will need to remove and reinstall
puppeteer for it to take effect.
See the configuration guide for more information.
puppeteer-coreEvery release since v1.7.0 we publish two packages:
puppeteer is a product for browser automation. When installed, it downloads
a version of Chromium, which it then drives using puppeteer-core. Being an
end-user product, puppeteer automates several workflows using reasonable
defaults that can be customized.
puppeteer-core is a library to help drive anything that supports DevTools
protocol. Being a library, puppeteer-core is fully driven through its
programmatic interface implying no defaults are assumed and puppeteer-core
will not download Chromium when installed.
You should use puppeteer-core if you are
connecting to a remote browser
or managing browsers yourself.
If you are managing browsers yourself, you will need to call
puppeteer.launch with
an an explicit
executablePath
(or channel if it's
installed in a standard location).
When using puppeteer-core, remember to change the import:
import puppeteer from 'puppeteer-core';
Puppeteer follows the latest maintenance LTS version of Node.
Puppeteer will be familiar to people using other browser testing frameworks. You launch/connect a browser, create some pages, and then manipulate them with Puppeteer's API.
For more in-depth usage, check our guides and examples.
The following example searches developers.google.com/web for articles tagged "Headless Chrome" and scrape results from the results page.
import puppeteer from 'puppeteer';
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://developers.google.com/web/');
// Type into search box.
await page.type('.devsite-search-field', 'Headless Chrome');
// Wait for suggest overlay to appear and click "show all results".
const allResultsSelector = '.devsite-suggest-all-results';
await page.waitForSelector(allResultsSelector);
await page.click(allResultsSelector);
// Wait for the results page to load and display the results.
const resultsSelector = '.gsc-results .gs-title';
await page.waitForSelector(resultsSelector);
// Extract the results from the page.
const links = await page.evaluate(resultsSelector => {
return [...document.querySelectorAll(resultsSelector)].map(anchor => {
const title = anchor.textContent.split('|')[0].trim();
return `${title} - ${anchor.href}`;
});
}, resultsSelector);
// Print all the files.
console.log(links.join('\n'));
await browser.close();
})();
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 puppeteer.launch({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 puppeteer.launch({executablePath: '/path/to/Chrome'});
You can also use Puppeteer with Firefox Nightly (experimental support). See
Puppeteer.launch 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.
See our Docker guide.
See our Chrome extensions guide.
Check out our contributing guide to get an overview of Puppeteer development.
FAQs
A high-level API to control headless Chrome over the DevTools Protocol
The npm package puppeteer-core receives a total of 4,813,382 weekly downloads. As such, puppeteer-core popularity was classified as popular.
We found that puppeteer-core demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 2 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
Did you know?
Socket for GitHub automatically highlights issues in each pull request and monitors the health of all your open source dependencies. Discover the contents of your packages and block harmful activity before you install or update your dependencies.
Research
Security News
Socket researchers discovered a malware campaign on npm delivering the Skuld infostealer via typosquatted packages, exposing sensitive data.
Security News
Sonar’s acquisition of Tidelift highlights a growing industry shift toward sustainable open source funding, addressing maintainer burnout and critical software dependencies.
Security News
Ransomware negotiators share how modern cybercriminals operate like corporations, using specialized teams, negotiation tactics, and reputation management.