I need to find a good PHP library that can work as a headless browser. The main requirement is that it should have JavaScript engine support built in so I can interact with dynamic web pages. I want to scrape websites that load content with JavaScript after the initial page load. It would be great if the solution is open source and free to use. I’ve been searching around but haven’t found anything that fits my needs perfectly. Has anyone worked with similar tools before? What would you recommend for this kind of task? I’m looking for something reliable that can handle modern web applications.
I’ve used Selenium WebDriver with PHP for two years - it’s great for JavaScript-heavy sites. You need to run a separate server, but once it’s set up, it’s rock solid. What hooked me was being able to grab elements that only show up after AJAX calls finish. The docs aren’t amazing, but the community’s big enough to help with most problems. It’s not super fast, but when you need accuracy over speed, it works every time.
puppeteer-php is great! It’s basically a wrapper for Google Puppeteer and I’ve had a pretty smooth experience with it. Works really well for dynamic sites, too. Def recommend giving it a shot!
Chrome DevTools Protocol with ReactPHP has worked great for me on several projects. You communicate directly with Chrome/Chromium through their debugging protocol - no wrapper layers needed. Takes more setup work than ready-made solutions, but you get full control and can handle complex stuff like auth flows or multi-step interactions. Performance is solid since you’re talking straight to the browser engine. Main downside is you’ll write more custom error handling code, but if you want something lightweight and don’t mind extra boilerplate, definitely worth it.