Overview

PhantomJS

Stacks1.7K

Followers430

Votes18

GitHub Stars29.5K

Forks5.7K

SlimerJS

Stacks14

Followers17

Votes0

GitHub Stars3.0K

Forks256

PhantomJS vs SlimerJS: What are the differences?

Introduction:

PhantomJS and SlimerJS are both headless web browsers that allow for website automation and testing. While they serve a similar purpose, there are key differences between the two that set them apart.

Execution Engine: PhantomJS utilizes the WebKit layout engine, which is also used by popular web browsers like Safari and Chrome. On the other hand, SlimerJS uses the Gecko engine, which powers Firefox. This difference in underlying engines can result in varying rendering and performance characteristics between the two browsers.
Language Support: PhantomJS supports scripting using JavaScript, making it a popular choice for developers familiar with this language. In contrast, SlimerJS offers support for both JavaScript as well as the Gecko-specific scripting language, GeckoJS. This allows users to interact more directly with the underlying Gecko engine and leverage its specific functionality if needed.
Compatibility: PhantomJS has better compatibility with web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and SVG. It also supports various web standards and specifications. SlimerJS, on the other hand, may have some limitations and inconsistencies in terms of compatibility with newer web technologies, as it relies on the Gecko engine, which may lag behind in adopting the latest standards.
Development and Maintenance: PhantomJS was originally released in 2011 and has gained significant popularity and adoption over the years. However, its development and maintenance have slowed down, and there have been no major updates or releases since 2018. SlimerJS, in comparison, is a relatively newer project that started in 2013 and has more active development and updates. This can be advantageous for users seeking ongoing improvements and bug fixes.
Platform Compatibility: PhantomJS is known for its broad platform compatibility, supporting Windows, macOS, Linux, and even Raspberry Pi. SlimerJS, on the other hand, is primarily focused on Windows and macOS, with limited support for Linux distributions. This can be a crucial factor for users who require cross-platform compatibility.
Integration with Other Tools: PhantomJS provides seamless integration with popular automation frameworks and tools like Selenium WebDriver, which allows for easier integration with existing testing infrastructure. Although SlimerJS also supports Selenium WebDriver, it may have some limitations and inconsistencies due to its reliance on the Gecko engine.

In summary, PhantomJS and SlimerJS differ in their underlying engines, language support, compatibility with web technologies, development and maintenance status, platform compatibility, and integration with other tools. These differences make each browser suitable for specific use cases and user preferences.

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Advice on PhantomJS, SlimerJS

Ankur

Software Engineer

Dec 4, 2019

Needs advice

I am using Node 12 for server scripting and have a function to generate PDF and send it to a browser. Currently, we are using PhantomJS to generate a PDF. Some web post shows that we can achieve PDF generation using Puppeteer. I was a bit confused. Should we move to puppeteerJS? Which one is better with NodeJS for generating PDF?

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Detailed Comparison

PhantomJS	SlimerJS
PhantomJS is a headless WebKit scriptable with JavaScript. It is used by hundreds of developers and dozens of organizations for web-related development workflow.	It allows you to manipulate a web page with an external Javascript script: opening a webpage, clicking on links, modifying the content... It is useful to do functional tests, page automation, network monitoring, screen capture etc.
Multiplatform, available on major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other Unices; Fast and native implementation of web standards: DOM, CSS, JavaScript, Canvas, and SVG. No emulation; Pure headless (no X11) on Linux, ideal for continuous integration systems. Also runs on Amazon EC2, Heroku, and Iron.io; Easy to install: Download, unpack, and start having fun in just 5 minutes	Read and write files; Load a web page and inspect its content; Act on a web page like a user: click on links, fill in form fields etc; Listen for network events, to do network monitoring during the load of a webpage; Taking screenshots of a web page.
Statistics
GitHub Stars 29.5K	GitHub Stars 3.0K
GitHub Forks 5.7K	GitHub Forks 256
Stacks 1.7K	Stacks 14
Followers 430	Followers 17
Votes 18	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 13 Scriptable web browser 3 Depends on QT 2 No ECMAScript 6	No community feedback yet
Integrations
FreeBSD macOS Windows Linux	StackStorm CasperJS bip.io Poltergeist Trails

What are some alternatives to PhantomJS, SlimerJS?

Playwright

It is a Node library to automate the Chromium, WebKit and Firefox browsers with a single API. It enables cross-browser web automation that is ever-green, capable, reliable and fast.

Puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome over the DevTools Protocol. It can also be configured to use full (non-headless) Chrome.

HeadlessTesting

Headless Browser Cloud for Developers. Connect your Puppeteer and Playwright scripts to our Cloud. Automated Browser Testing with Puppeteer and Playwright in the Cloud.

jsdom

It is a pure-JavaScript implementation of many web standards, notably the WHATWG DOM and HTML Standards, for use with Node.js. In general, the goal of the project is to emulate enough of a subset of a web browser to be useful for testing and scraping real-world web applications.

CasperJS

CasperJS is a browser navigation scripting & testing utility written in Javascript for PhantomJS or SlimerJS.

Splash

It is a headless browser that executes JavaScript for people crawling websites. It is open source and fully integrated with Scrapy and Portia. You can also use its API to integrate with any project that needs to render JavaScript pages.

Chromeless

Chrome automation made simple. Runs locally or headless on AWS Lambda.

Serverless Chrome

The aim of this project is to provide the scaffolding for using Headless Chrome during a serverless function invocation. Serverless Chrome takes care of building and bundling the Chrome binaries and making sure Chrome is running when your serverless function executes. In addition, this project also provides a few "example" handlers for common patterns (e.g. taking a screenshot of a page, printing to PDF, some scraping, etc.)