I’ve been working with HtmlUnit for headless browsing in my Java projects and while it’s a solid library, I’m running into JavaScript compatibility issues with certain websites I need to scrape.
I’m looking for alternatives that can handle modern JavaScript better. I know there are WebKit bindings available for Python, but I need something that works with Java.
Can anyone recommend a reliable headless browser solution for Java that provides comprehensive JavaScript support? I need it to execute complex JavaScript code that HtmlUnit struggles with.
I’ve had the same JavaScript headaches scraping financial sites with heavy client-side rendering. Playwright for Java saved me - it’s newer but handles JavaScript perfectly since it runs real browser engines. The API is clean and deals with async stuff way better than older tools. You could also try CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework) with Java bindings through JCEF, but setup’s a pain. Playwright hits the sweet spot between easy to use and good performance. Yeah, it uses more resources than HtmlUnit, but the reliability boost is worth it when you need accurate JavaScript execution over raw speed.
javaFX WebView could work if ur okay with the overhead. it’s webkit wrapped for Java and handles most modern js just fine. more clunky than selenium but easier to deploy since u dont need an external browser. i’ve used it for internal tools where installing chrome drivers was a pain.
Have you tried Selenium WebDriver with headless Chrome or Firefox? I made the switch from HtmlUnit about two years ago when React-heavy sites kept breaking my scraping setup. The JavaScript execution is basically native since you’re running actual browser instances in headless mode. Performance isn’t as fast as HtmlUnit, but compatibility is way better. You can set ChromeOptions to headless and turn off images/CSS loading for speed. WebDriver drops right into existing Java code and handles modern ES6+ stuff without breaking. Just watch the memory usage - make sure you’re managing driver instances properly and use connection pooling if you’re running multiple scrapers at once.