Nightmare.js vs Puppeteer

Overview

Puppeteer

Stacks1.0K

Followers582

Votes26

Nightmare.js

Stacks11

Followers26

Votes0

Nightmare.js vs Puppeteer: What are the differences?

Introduction Here are the key differences between Nightmare.js and Puppeteer, two popular web automation frameworks.

Execution Environment: Nightmare.js runs on top of Electron, a framework that allows building cross-platform desktop applications using web technologies. Puppeteer, on the other hand, is a Node.js library that controls a headless version of Chromium. This means that Puppeteer can be used on various platforms without the need for installing a separate runtime environment like Electron.
API Design: Nightmare.js focuses on providing a high-level API that abstracts away low-level details, making it easier for beginners to use. It aims for a more declarative syntax, allowing users to chain actions in a more readable and fluent manner. Puppeteer, on the other hand, offers a more comprehensive and flexible API, exposing lower-level functions and options for fine-grained control over web automation tasks.
Concurrent Operations: Puppeteer has built-in support for executing multiple tasks concurrently, allowing for more efficient and faster automation. Nightmare.js, on the other hand, runs each task in a sequential manner, which can result in slower execution if there are dependencies between different tasks.
Documentation and Community: Puppeteer is backed by Google, and hence, it has extensive documentation and a large and active community. This means that finding resources, examples, and support is relatively easier with Puppeteer compared to Nightmare.js. Nightmare.js, on the other hand, has a smaller community and a narrower scope of use cases.
Browser Events and Manipulation: Puppeteer provides more extensive control over events and user interactions on a webpage. It allows triggering mouse events, keyboard inputs, and user gestures like scrolling and zooming. Nightmare.js, while also supporting these interactions, may have limitations and may not provide the same level of control for complex user interactions.
Extensibility and Customization: Puppeteer offers more options for extending and customizing its functionality. It allows users to modify the behavior of the browser, intercept network requests, and use Chrome DevTools Protocol directly. Nightmare.js, while providing some extensibility options, may have more limited possibilities for advanced customization.

In summary, while both Nightmare.js and Puppeteer are capable web automation frameworks, Puppeteer offers a more versatile and flexible API, better documentations and larger community support, support for concurrent operations, extensive browser events and manipulation control, and more options for customization.

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Advice on Puppeteer, Nightmare.js

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

Puppeteer	Nightmare.js
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.	It is a high-level browser automation library. It lets you simplify deeply nested callbacks into a few sequential statements. Its goal is to expose a few simple methods that mimic user actions.
-	Browser automation ; Simplify deeply nested callbacks
Statistics
Stacks 1.0K	Stacks 11
Followers 582	Followers 26
Votes 26	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 10 Scriptable web browser 10 Very well documented 6 Promise based Cons 10 Chrome only	No community feedback yet
Integrations
Node.js	Electron Google Chrome

What are some alternatives to Puppeteer, Nightmare.js?

Underscore

A JavaScript library that provides a whole mess of useful functional programming helpers without extending any built-in objects.

Deno

It is a secure runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript built with V8, Rust, and Tokio.

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.

Chart.js

Visualize your data in 6 different ways. Each of them animated, with a load of customisation options and interactivity extensions.

PhantomJS

PhantomJS is a headless WebKit scriptable with JavaScript. It is used by hundreds of developers and dozens of organizations for web-related development workflow.

Immutable.js

Immutable provides Persistent Immutable List, Stack, Map, OrderedMap, Set, OrderedSet and Record. They are highly efficient on modern JavaScript VMs by using structural sharing via hash maps tries and vector tries as popularized by Clojure and Scala, minimizing the need to copy or cache data.

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.

Lodash

A JavaScript utility library delivering consistency, modularity, performance, & extras. It provides utility functions for common programming tasks using the functional programming paradigm.

Ramda

It emphasizes a purer functional style. Immutability and side-effect free functions are at the heart of its design philosophy. This can help you get the job done with simple, elegant code.

Vue CLI

Vue CLI aims to be the standard tooling baseline for the Vue ecosystem. It ensures the various build tools work smoothly together with sensible defaults so you can focus on writing your app instead of spending days wrangling with config.

Related Comparisons

Nightmare.js vs Puppeteer: What are the differences?

Introduction Here are the key differences between Nightmare.js and Puppeteer, two popular web automation frameworks.

Execution Environment: Nightmare.js runs on top of Electron, a framework that allows building cross-platform desktop applications using web technologies. Puppeteer, on the other hand, is a Node.js library that controls a headless version of Chromium. This means that Puppeteer can be used on various platforms without the need for installing a separate runtime environment like Electron.
API Design: Nightmare.js focuses on providing a high-level API that abstracts away low-level details, making it easier for beginners to use. It aims for a more declarative syntax, allowing users to chain actions in a more readable and fluent manner. Puppeteer, on the other hand, offers a more comprehensive and flexible API, exposing lower-level functions and options for fine-grained control over web automation tasks.
Concurrent Operations: Puppeteer has built-in support for executing multiple tasks concurrently, allowing for more efficient and faster automation. Nightmare.js, on the other hand, runs each task in a sequential manner, which can result in slower execution if there are dependencies between different tasks.
Documentation and Community: Puppeteer is backed by Google, and hence, it has extensive documentation and a large and active community. This means that finding resources, examples, and support is relatively easier with Puppeteer compared to Nightmare.js. Nightmare.js, on the other hand, has a smaller community and a narrower scope of use cases.
Browser Events and Manipulation: Puppeteer provides more extensive control over events and user interactions on a webpage. It allows triggering mouse events, keyboard inputs, and user gestures like scrolling and zooming. Nightmare.js, while also supporting these interactions, may have limitations and may not provide the same level of control for complex user interactions.
Extensibility and Customization: Puppeteer offers more options for extending and customizing its functionality. It allows users to modify the behavior of the browser, intercept network requests, and use Chrome DevTools Protocol directly. Nightmare.js, while providing some extensibility options, may have more limited possibilities for advanced customization.

Nightmare.js vs Puppeteer

Overview