How Is Browserist Different from Selenium?#

Browserist isn't just an alternative to Selenium. It's a Python extension to Selenium that makes browser automation even easier.

Improved Stability and Less Code#

Browserist improves stability with less code compared to standard use of Selenium. As browsers need time to render web pages, especially single-page applications, Selenium is often used with explicit timeouts:

With Selenium
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

driver = webdriver.Chrome()

driver.get("https://example.com")
driver.implicitly_wait(3)
search_box = driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "//xpath/to/input")
search_button = driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "//xpath/to/button")
search_box.send_keys("Lorem ipsum")
search_button.click()
driver.quit()

Browserist does the same with less and cleaner code, yet also with increased stability and without explicit/implicit waits:

With Browserist
from browserist import Browser

with Browser() as browser:
    browser.open.url("https://example.com")
    browser.input.value("//xpath/to/input", "Lorem ipsum")
    browser.click.button("//xpath/to/button")

Why Avoid Explicit or Implicit Waits?#

As you can't click a button that's not ready in the DOM, Browserist simply checks if elements are ready before interacting with them. This makes the code more stable and less prone to errors.

Sweet Spot of Browser Automation#

You don't want to be too fast nor too slow when automating a browser. You're simply dependant on too many factors that are beyond your control: internet speed, server response time, etc. The sweet spot is to be just right:

Timing	Consequence	Description
Too short	Code breaks	Wait for 1 second, e.g. `time.sleep(1)`, hoping that an element is ready within a fixed amount of time.
Just right	Stable and fast	Browserist checks if an element is ready before interacting with it, e.g. `wait.for_element()`.
Too long	Slow	Wait for 10 seconds, e.g. `time.sleep(10)`, just to be sure an element is ready.

Ready to try? Let's get started.