I’m working on a web scraping project in C# and need to find a good headless browser solution. I used to work with Python where I had Mechanize library which worked great for my needs. Now I’m looking for something similar in the .NET ecosystem. The main requirements are being able to run without a GUI, handle form filling and submissions automatically, and ideally support JavaScript execution. Does anyone know what libraries or tools would work best for this kind of automation in C#?
Selenium WebDriver with ChromeDriver is your best bet for C# web automation. I’ve used it for years and it covers everything you need - runs headless, handles forms perfectly, and supports JavaScript since it controls real browser instances. Great documentation and huge community help when you hit weird issues. Setup’s easy with NuGet packages and the API makes sense if you’ve done automation before. Performance is solid for most scraping, but it’ll eat resources if you run multiple instances at once.
Hey, have you looked into PuppeteerSharp? It’s pretty solid for headless browsing and works well with .NET. It supports JS and is not too complicated to set up. Might be a good alternative to Selenium.
HtmlAgilityPack combined with HttpClient can be a great choice if you don’t specifically need JavaScript execution. I’ve had a lot of success with this setup for years, as it manages scraping tasks effectively without the need for a full browser. It’s lightweight and efficient, handling forms and basic DOM manipulation seamlessly. However, if the sites you’re targeting rely heavily on JavaScript, then you might want to consider the browser-based options others have suggested. For straightforward scraping where speed is essential, this method can significantly reduce resource consumption.
AngleSharp doesn’t get mentioned much but it’s worth looking at. I’ve used it for content extraction and form automation for two years now. It’s pure C# and parses HTML/CSS without external dependencies, so deployment’s way simpler than browser-based tools. The JavaScript support isn’t as good as Playwright or Selenium, but it covers most common stuff. Performance is great since there’s no browser overhead, and memory stays low even when running multiple operations. Really shines when you’re scraping sites that don’t rely heavily on dynamic content.
Look, these solutions work but they’ll eat your time with maintenance and debugging. I’ve managed scrapers at scale - the real problem isn’t finding a headless browser, it’s keeping everything running when sites change or you scale up.
You need automation that handles this complexity. Skip wrestling with PuppeteerSharp configs or managing Selenium instances. Build your scraping workflow visually and let the platform handle browser management, retries, and scaling.
I switched our entire scraping operation to this last year. Need to scrape new sites or handle form submissions? Just drag and drop the logic. Browser automation runs in the cloud, handles JavaScript perfectly, and Chrome updates won’t break everything.
Best part - integrate directly with your C# app through APIs. Keep your existing code but outsource the headaches.
Check out Latenode for this: https://latenode.com
Playwright’s worth a look too. Works great with C# and handles JS execution really well. I’ve found it faster than Selenium most of the time, plus the API is clean. Easy setup through NuGet.