Headless Browsers
4 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars — scroll down for our analysis.
| Tool | Stars | Velocity | Language | License | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Puppeteer JavaScript API for Chrome and Firefox | 93.9k | — | TypeScript | Apache License 2.0 | 82 |
| 24.8k | — | Zig | — | 63 | |
| 6.7k | — | Python | — | 55 | |
| 1.8k | — | TypeScript | — | 45 |
Our Analysis
Puppeteer gives you programmatic control over Chrome and Firefox. Spin up a headless browser, navigate pages, fill forms, screenshot, generate PDFs — all from a clean JavaScript API. Google maintains it, which means it tracks Chrome features closely. Playwright is the main competitor from Microsoft — supports more browsers, better auto-waiting, and has overtaken Puppeteer for testing. Selenium is the legacy option that supports everything but feels ancient. For commercial, Browserbase and Apify provide hosted browser infrastructure. Use Puppeteer if you need Chrome-specific browser automation — scraping, PDF generation, screenshot services, or Chrome extension testing. The API is well-documented and Stack Overflow has answers for everything. The catch: Playwright is just better for most use cases now. Better cross-browser support, better test runner, better debugging tools. Puppeteer's advantage is Chrome-specific features and a slightly simpler API. If you're starting fresh, reach for Playwright first. Puppeteer is the tool you keep for Chrome-only jobs.