Pros of Rod

• Rod is a high-level, user-friendly web automation library that provides a simple and intuitive API for interacting with web pages.
• Rod offers a wide range of features, including support for headless and non-headless browsers, automatic retries, and built-in support for common web tasks like form filling, clicking, and scraping.
• Rod is highly performant and efficient, with a focus on speed and reliability.

Cons of Rod

• Rod may have a steeper learning curve compared to Surf, especially for developers who are new to web automation.
• Rod's focus on web automation may make it less suitable for general-purpose web development tasks compared to Surf.
• Rod's dependency on the Chromium browser may limit its compatibility with other browsers.

Code Comparison

Surf:

s := surf.NewSession(&surf.Options{
    UserAgent: "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/58.0.3029.110 Safari/537.3",
})

err := s.Open("https://www.example.com")
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}

title, err := s.Title()
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}

fmt.Println("Page title:", title)

Rod:

browser := rod.New().MustConnect()
defer browser.MustClose()

page := browser.MustPage("https://www.example.com")
defer page.MustClose()

title, err := page.Title()
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}

fmt.Println("Page title:", title)

Pros of chromedp/chromedp

• Supports a wide range of browser actions, including navigation, input, and screenshot capture.
• Provides a high-level API that abstracts away the complexity of interacting with the Chrome DevTools Protocol.
• Offers a flexible and extensible architecture, allowing users to customize and extend the functionality as needed.

Cons of chromedp/chromedp

• Requires the installation and configuration of a Chrome or Chromium browser, which can be a dependency for some users.
• May have a steeper learning curve compared to simpler web automation tools, especially for users new to the Chrome DevTools Protocol.
• Focuses primarily on Chrome/Chromium-based browsers, limiting its applicability to other browser environments.

Code Comparison

Here's a brief code comparison between chromedp/chromedp and headzoo/surf:

chromedp/chromedp (navigating to a website and capturing a screenshot):

ctx, cancel := chromedp.NewContext(context.Background())
defer cancel()

var buf []byte
err := chromedp.Run(ctx,
    chromedp.Navigate("https://www.example.com"),
    chromedp.CaptureScreenshot(&buf),
)
if err != nil {
    // handle error
}

headzoo/surf (navigating to a website and printing the page title):

browser := surf.NewBrowser()
err := browser.Open("https://www.example.com")
if err != nil {
    // handle error
}
fmt.Println(browser.Title())

Pros of Colly

• Colly is a fast and efficient web scraping framework for Go, making it well-suited for large-scale web crawling projects.
• Colly provides a modular and extensible design, allowing developers to easily customize and extend its functionality.
• Colly has a strong focus on performance, with features like parallel request handling and automatic retries.

Cons of Colly

• Colly may have a steeper learning curve compared to Surf, as it requires a deeper understanding of Go and web scraping concepts.
• Colly's documentation, while comprehensive, may not be as beginner-friendly as Surf's.
• Colly may have a more complex setup process, as it requires the installation of additional dependencies.

Code Comparison

Surf (JavaScript):

const surf = require('surf');

surf('https://example.com', (err, $) => {
  if (err) {
    console.error(err);
    return;
  }

  console.log($('title').text());
});

Colly (Go):

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "github.com/gocolly/colly"
)

func main() {
    c := colly.NewCollector()
    c.OnHTML("title", func(e *colly.HTMLElement) {
        fmt.Println(e.Text)
    })
    c.Visit("https://example.com")
}

Pros of goquery

• goquery is a pure Go library, making it a more lightweight and efficient option compared to Surf.
• goquery provides a familiar jQuery-like syntax for querying and manipulating HTML documents, which can be more intuitive for developers already familiar with jQuery.
• goquery is actively maintained and has a larger community, with more contributors and a more extensive documentation.

Cons of goquery

• Surf provides a more comprehensive set of features, including support for cookies, headers, and other advanced web browsing functionality.
• Surf has a more flexible and extensible architecture, allowing for easier customization and integration with other libraries.
• Surf may be a better choice for more complex web scraping tasks that require more advanced features and functionality.

Code Comparison

Surf (headzoo/surf):

browser := surf.NewBrowser()
err := browser.Open("https://example.com")
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}

link, err := browser.Find("a.my-link").Attr("href")
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}

fmt.Println(link)

goquery (PuerkitoBio/goquery):

doc, err := goquery.NewDocument("https://example.com")
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}

link, _ := doc.Find("a.my-link").Attr("href")
fmt.Println(link)

Pros of Playwright-Go

• Playwright-Go provides a more comprehensive and feature-rich API for automating web browsers, including support for multiple browsers (Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit).
• The Playwright-Go library is actively maintained and has a larger community of contributors, ensuring regular updates and bug fixes.
• Playwright-Go offers better cross-browser compatibility and can handle more complex web interactions compared to Surf.

Cons of Playwright-Go

• Playwright-Go has a larger footprint and may require more system dependencies, which can make it more challenging to set up and deploy in certain environments.
• The Playwright-Go API may have a steeper learning curve for developers who are more familiar with simpler web automation libraries like Surf.

Code Comparison

Surf (headzoo/surf):

browser := surf.NewBrowser()
err := browser.Open("https://www.example.com")
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}
fmt.Println(browser.Body())

Playwright-Go (playwright-community/playwright-go):

pw, err := playwright.Run()
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}
defer pw.Stop()

browser, err := pw.Chromium.NewBrowser()
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}
defer browser.Close()

page, err := browser.NewPage()
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}
defer page.Close()

_, err = page.Navigate("https://www.example.com")
if err != nil {
    // Handle error
}
fmt.Println(page.Content())

Pros of Selenium

• Selenium is a widely-used and well-established library for web automation, with a large community and extensive documentation.
• Selenium supports multiple programming languages, including Python, Java, and C#, making it a versatile choice.
• Selenium can interact with a wide range of web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, providing cross-browser testing capabilities.

Cons of Selenium

• Selenium can be more complex to set up and configure compared to simpler web automation libraries like Surf.
• Selenium may have a steeper learning curve, especially for developers new to web automation.
• Selenium can be more resource-intensive than some alternatives, as it requires managing browser instances and handling network communication.

Code Comparison

Surf:

from surf import Browser

browser = Browser()
browser.go("https://www.example.com")
print(browser.title)
browser.quit()

Selenium:

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://www.example.com")
print(driver.title)
driver.quit()

Both code snippets perform a similar task of navigating to a website, retrieving the page title, and closing the browser instance. The main difference is the library used, with Surf providing a more concise and user-friendly API compared to the more verbose Selenium syntax.