puppeteer is a Node.js library that provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. It allows developers to automate tasks such as web scraping, testing, and generating screenshots of web pages. Puppeteer is widely used for web automation and testing purposes due to its powerful features and ease of use.

While puppeteer is a popular choice for web automation, there are other libraries and tools available in the market that offer similar functionalities. Here are a few alternatives:

• nightmare is a high-level browser automation library that uses Electron under the hood. It provides a simple API for automating tasks in the browser and has a focus on ease of use.
• playwright is a Node.js library for automating browsers developed by Microsoft. It supports multiple browsers (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit) and provides a powerful API for browser automation and testing.
• selenium-webdriver is a popular automation tool that supports multiple programming languages and browsers. It allows developers to automate web browsers for testing purposes.

For a detailed comparison of nightmare, playwright, puppeteer, and selenium-webdriver, check out this link: Comparing nightmare vs playwright vs puppeteer vs selenium-webdriver.

Puppeteer

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 ("headful") Chrome/Chromium.

Get started | API | FAQ | Contributing | Troubleshooting

Example

import puppeteer from 'puppeteer';

(async () => {
  // Launch the browser and open a new blank page
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();

  // Navigate the page to a URL
  await page.goto('https://developer.chrome.com/');

  // Set screen size
  await page.setViewport({width: 1080, height: 1024});

  // Type into search box
  await page.type('.devsite-search-field', 'automate beyond recorder');

  // Wait and click on first result
  const searchResultSelector = '.devsite-result-item-link';
  await page.waitForSelector(searchResultSelector);
  await page.click(searchResultSelector);

  // Locate the full title with a unique string
  const textSelector = await page.waitForSelector(
    'text/Customize and automate'
  );
  const fullTitle = await textSelector?.evaluate(el => el.textContent);

  // Print the full title
  console.log('The title of this blog post is "%s".', fullTitle);

  await browser.close();
})();