cheerio vs xpath vs dom7 vs sizzle | Web Scraping and DOM Manipulation Comparison

Package	Downloads	Stars	Size	Issues	Publish	License

cheerio	11,933,303	29,663	1.27 MB	32	10 days ago	MIT
xpath	3,573,613	232	183 kB	24	2 years ago	MIT
dom7	665,104	165	292 kB	28	2 years ago	MIT
sizzle	26,779	6,290	133 kB	11	2 years ago	MIT

Selector Engine

cheerio:
cheerio uses a jQuery-like selector engine that allows for fast and efficient DOM traversal and manipulation. It supports a wide range of CSS selectors, making it easy to select and manipulate elements in HTML documents.
xpath:
xpath allows for complex querying of XML and HTML documents using XPath expressions. It provides a powerful way to navigate and select elements based on their structure, attributes, and content, making it ideal for precise data extraction.
dom7:
dom7 provides a lightweight selector engine with jQuery-like capabilities. It supports basic CSS selectors, making it easy to select elements for manipulation, but it is designed to be more efficient and faster than jQuery, especially for mobile environments.
sizzle:
sizzle is a standalone CSS selector engine that provides fast and reliable element selection using standard CSS selectors. It is highly optimized for performance and is used by jQuery for its selector functionality, making it one of the fastest selector engines available.

Performance

cheerio:
cheerio is designed for high performance in server-side environments. It is lightweight and fast, making it suitable for processing large HTML documents quickly, which is essential for web scraping tasks.
xpath:
xpath performance depends on the complexity of the XPath expressions used and the structure of the XML or HTML documents being queried. While it can handle complex queries efficiently, performance may vary with deeply nested or large documents.
dom7:
dom7 is optimized for performance, especially in mobile environments. Its small size and efficient DOM manipulation methods make it faster than many other libraries, including jQuery, making it ideal for applications where performance is critical.
sizzle:
sizzle is known for its high performance in selecting elements using CSS selectors. It is particularly efficient for complex selections and is designed to be fast, making it a great choice for projects that require quick element querying.

Use Case

cheerio:
cheerio is ideal for web scraping, server-side HTML manipulation, and automated testing. It is commonly used to extract data from web pages, modify HTML content, and perform tasks that require manipulating the DOM on the server.
xpath:
xpath is used for XML and HTML data extraction, manipulation, and transformation. It is ideal for applications that need to work with structured documents, perform complex queries, and extract data based on specific criteria.
dom7:
dom7 is best suited for modern web applications, mobile apps, and projects that require lightweight DOM manipulation. It is often used in frameworks like Framework7 and Swiper for efficient element manipulation without the overhead of larger libraries.
sizzle:
sizzle is used in projects that require a fast and reliable CSS selector engine. It is particularly useful for libraries and applications that need efficient element selection without the full weight of a framework like jQuery.

Ease of Use: Code Examples

cheerio:

HTML Manipulation with cheerio

const cheerio = require('cheerio');
const html = '<ul><li class="item">Item 1</li><li class="item">Item 2</li></ul>';
const $ = cheerio.load(html);

// Select and manipulate elements
$('.item').each((index, element) => {
  $(element).text(`Updated Item ${index + 1}`);
});

console.log($.html()); // Outputs modified HTML

xpath:

XPath Querying with xpath

import { parse } from 'xpath';
import { DOMParser } from 'xmldom';
const html = '<root><item>1</item><item>2</item></root>';
const doc = new DOMParser().parseFromString(html);
const nodes = parse('//item')(doc);

// Extract and manipulate data
nodes.forEach((node) => {
  console.log(node.textContent);
});

dom7:

DOM Manipulation with dom7

import Dom7 from 'dom7';
const $ = Dom7;
const html = '<div class="container"><p>Hello World</p></div>';

// Select and manipulate elements
$('.container').css('background-color', 'lightblue');
$('.container p').text('Hello Dom7!');

console.log($.html()); // Outputs modified HTML

sizzle:

Element Selection with sizzle

import { select } from 'sizzle';
const html = '<div><span class="highlight">Hello</span><span>World</span></div>';
const elements = select('.highlight');

// Manipulate selected elements
elements.forEach((el) => {
  el.textContent = 'Hi';
});

console.log(elements[0].textContent); // Outputs: Hi