pydoll

Pydoll controls Chromium browsers using the Chrome DevTools Protocol directly, without needing a WebDriver binary like Selenium does. The pitch: faster startup, lower overhead, no driver version mismatches. MIT license, Python. It's async-first (built on asyncio), which means you can control multiple browser tabs concurrently without threading. Supports page navigation, screenshots, PDF generation, network interception, and cookie management.

Fully free. No paid tier, no hosted version. Pure Python library.

The honest take: Pydoll is the new kid in a crowded space. At and growing, there's clear interest, but Playwright (by Microsoft) has a far larger community, better documentation, and handles Firefox and WebKit in addition to Chromium. Pydoll's advantage is simplicity. It's a lighter abstraction if you specifically want CDP control without Playwright's full framework. Solo developers experimenting with browser automation: try it, the API is clean. Teams building production scrapers or test suites: Playwright is the safer bet for now.

The catch: Chromium-only. No Firefox, no Safari/WebKit. The documentation is early-stage. And 'no WebDriver needed' sounds great until you realize Playwright also doesn't need a separate WebDriver and supports three browser engines. Pydoll needs to find a stronger differentiator as it matures.