Headless browser with full javascript support for java

java webkit qtwebkit headless headless-browser
John picture John · Jul 24, 2012 · Viewed 24k times · Source

I have been using HtmlUnit (the developers did a great job) as an headless browser for some of my previous applications but the javascript support isn't working for some website that my next application will be accessing.

  1. I heard about QtWebKit binding for Python but my application will be in Java or is there a Java binding for WebKit or QtWebKit?

  2. Does anyone know a good headless browser for Java with full javascript support?

Answer

Haroldo_OK picture Haroldo_OK · Jul 1, 2013

Nathan Ridley's answer to another similar question is the most complete one I've found so far.

Anyway, if everything fails, you could use a Python or JS alternative, expose its funcionality as a webservice inside your server, and then your Java application could use the headless browser's funcionality through the webservice. It would be a pain to set up, but it may be a viable alternative if nothing else works as desired.

Also, there are some "non-headless" browser wrappers for Java; maybe it would be possible to build a testing solution around those, depending on the requirements.

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