parse5 vs jsdom vs cheerio vs domino
HTML Parsing and Manipulation in Node.js Comparison
3 Years
parse5jsdomcheeriodominoSimilar Packages:
What's HTML Parsing and Manipulation in Node.js?

HTML parsing and manipulation libraries in Node.js provide developers with tools to work with HTML content programmatically. These libraries allow for tasks such as traversing, modifying, and extracting data from HTML documents, making them essential for web scraping, automated testing, and server-side rendering. Each library has its own strengths and use cases, ranging from lightweight and fast solutions to more feature-rich environments that mimic browser behavior. Choosing the right library depends on factors like performance, API design, and specific project requirements. cheerio is a fast, lightweight library that implements a subset of jQuery's API for server-side HTML manipulation. domino is a DOM implementation for Node.js that provides a lightweight and standards-compliant environment for manipulating HTML and XML documents. jsdom is a full-featured, standards-compliant DOM and HTML parser that simulates a web browser environment, making it ideal for testing and server-side rendering. parse5 is a fast and flexible HTML parser that adheres to the HTML5 specification, providing a streaming API for efficient parsing and manipulation of HTML documents.

Package Weekly Downloads Trend
Github Stars Ranking
Stat Detail
Package
Downloads
Stars
Size
Issues
Publish
License
parse550,306,300
3,807337 kB31a month agoMIT
jsdom30,247,233
21,1703.18 MB4394 months agoMIT
cheerio11,060,755
29,6861.27 MB34a month agoMIT
domino657,532
780-375 years agoBSD-2-Clause
Feature Comparison: parse5 vs jsdom vs cheerio vs domino

Parsing Performance

  • parse5:

    parse5 is one of the fastest HTML parsers available, especially for large documents. It is designed for performance and efficiency, making it ideal for applications that need to parse HTML quickly and with minimal resource usage.

  • jsdom:

    jsdom is slower compared to other libraries due to its comprehensive implementation of web standards. However, it provides a fully-featured DOM environment, which is beneficial for applications that require accurate simulation of browser behavior.

  • cheerio:

    cheerio is fast for parsing and manipulating HTML, but it relies on a DOM structure created by another parser (like htmlparser2). The overall performance depends on the parser used, but cheerio itself is optimized for quick DOM manipulation.

  • domino:

    domino provides good performance for parsing HTML and XML documents. It is lightweight and designed to be efficient, making it suitable for applications that require quick and simple DOM manipulation without significant overhead.

DOM Manipulation

  • parse5:

    parse5 focuses more on parsing than manipulation. It provides a DOM-like structure that can be manipulated, but it does not offer a dedicated API for manipulation. It is best used in conjunction with other libraries for manipulating the parsed content.

  • jsdom:

    jsdom offers a complete and standards-compliant DOM API, allowing for extensive manipulation of HTML documents. It supports all DOM features, making it suitable for complex manipulation tasks, testing, and scenarios that require full compliance with web standards.

  • cheerio:

    cheerio excels at DOM manipulation with its jQuery-like API, allowing for easy traversal, modification, and extraction of elements. It is particularly effective for tasks like web scraping and data extraction, where quick and intuitive manipulation is required.

  • domino:

    domino provides a simple and standards-compliant API for DOM manipulation. While it is not as feature-rich as cheerio, it allows for basic manipulation of HTML and XML documents, making it suitable for lightweight tasks.

Standards Compliance

  • parse5:

    parse5 is fully compliant with the HTML5 specification. It focuses on accurately parsing and serializing HTML according to the standards, making it a reliable choice for applications that require strict adherence to HTML5.

  • jsdom:

    jsdom is one of the most standards-compliant DOM implementations available for Node.js. It strives to implement the full range of web standards, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, making it ideal for testing and applications that require high fidelity to browser behavior.

  • cheerio:

    cheerio is not a full standards-compliant DOM implementation; it focuses on providing a subset of the DOM API for manipulation. It is designed to be compatible with jQuery, which makes it easy to use for tasks that do not require full compliance.

  • domino:

    domino provides a standards-compliant DOM implementation for HTML and XML. It aims to adhere to web standards, making it suitable for projects that require compliant DOM manipulation without the complexity of a full browser environment.

Use Case Suitability

  • parse5:

    parse5 is well-suited for applications that require fast and efficient HTML parsing, serialization, and manipulation. It is ideal for tools that need to process HTML documents quickly while adhering to the HTML5 specification, making it a great choice for parsers, linters, and other processing tools.

  • jsdom:

    jsdom is ideal for testing, server-side rendering, and applications that require a complete and accurate simulation of a web browser environment. It is particularly useful for frameworks and libraries that need to run in a Node.js environment while maintaining full compatibility with web standards.

  • cheerio:

    cheerio is best suited for web scraping, data extraction, and server-side HTML manipulation tasks where a lightweight and fast solution is needed. Its jQuery-like API makes it easy to use for quick DOM manipulations without the need for a full browser environment.

  • domino:

    domino is suitable for projects that require a lightweight and standards-compliant DOM implementation for simple HTML and XML manipulation. It is ideal for applications that do not need the full complexity of a browser environment but still require compliant DOM features.

Ease of Use: Code Examples

  • parse5:

    Parsing HTML with parse5

    const parse5 = require('parse5');
    const html = '<!DOCTYPE html><html><body><h1>Hello, World!</h1></body></html>';
    const document = parse5.parse(html);
    const h1 = document.childNodes[1].childNodes[1].childNodes[1];
    h1.childNodes[0].value = 'Hello, parse5!';
    const serialized = parse5.serialize(h1);
    console.log(serialized);
    
  • jsdom:

    Testing Example with jsdom

    const { JSDOM } = require('jsdom');
    const dom = new JSDOM('<!DOCTYPE html><html><body><h1>Hello, World!</h1></body></html>');
    const h1 = dom.window.document.querySelector('h1');
    h1.textContent = 'Hello, jsdom!';
    console.log(dom.serialize());
    
  • cheerio:

    Web Scraping Example with cheerio

    const cheerio = require('cheerio');
    const axios = require('axios');
    
    async function scrapeWebsite(url) {
      const { data } = await axios.get(url);
      const $ = cheerio.load(data);
      const titles = [];
    
      $('h1, h2, h3').each((index, element) => {
        titles.push($(element).text());
      });
    
      return titles;
    }
    
    scrapeWebsite('https://example.com').then(titles => {
      console.log('Scraped Titles:', titles);
    });
    
  • domino:

    Simple DOM Manipulation with domino

    const domino = require('domino');
    const doc = domino.createDocument('<!DOCTYPE html><html><body><h1>Hello, World!</h1></body></html>');
    const h1 = doc.querySelector('h1');
    h1.textContent = 'Hello, Domino!';
    console.log(doc.documentElement.outerHTML);
    
How to Choose: parse5 vs jsdom vs cheerio vs domino
  • parse5:

    Choose parse5 if you need a fast and flexible HTML parser that fully complies with the HTML5 specification. It is suitable for applications that require efficient parsing, serialization, and manipulation of HTML documents, with support for both streaming and tree-based APIs.

  • jsdom:

    Choose jsdom if you need a comprehensive and standards-compliant DOM and HTML parser that simulates a full browser environment. It is ideal for testing, server-side rendering, and applications that require a complete implementation of web standards.

  • cheerio:

    Choose cheerio if you need a fast and lightweight library for server-side HTML manipulation with a jQuery-like API. It is ideal for web scraping, data extraction, and simple DOM manipulation tasks.

  • domino:

    Choose domino if you require a lightweight and standards-compliant DOM implementation for Node.js. It is suitable for projects that need a simple and efficient way to manipulate HTML and XML documents without the overhead of a full browser environment.

README for parse5

parse5

parse5

HTML parser and serializer.

npm install --save parse5

📖 Documentation 📖


List of parse5 toolset packages

GitHub

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