You signed in with another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You signed out in another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You switched accounts on another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.Dismiss alert
Copy file name to clipboardExpand all lines: README.md
+48-48Lines changed: 48 additions & 48 deletions
Display the source diff
Display the rich diff
Original file line number
Diff line number
Diff line change
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ Lightpanda is the open-source browser made for headless usage:
16
16
- Support of Web APIs (partial, WIP)
17
17
- Compatible with Playwright, Puppeteer through CDP (WIP)
18
18
19
-
Fast scraping and web automation with minimal memory footprint:
19
+
Fast web automation for AI agents, LLM training, scraping and testing with minimal memory footprint:
20
20
21
21
- Ultra-low memory footprint (9x less than Chrome)
22
22
- Exceptionally fast execution (11x faster than Chrome) & instant startup
@@ -25,53 +25,6 @@ Fast scraping and web automation with minimal memory footprint:
25
25
26
26
See [benchmark details](https://github.com/lightpanda-io/demo).
27
27
28
-
## Why?
29
-
30
-
### Javascript execution is mandatory for the modern web
31
-
32
-
In the good old days, scraping a webpage was as easy as making an HTTP request, cURL-like. It’s not possible anymore, because Javascript is everywhere, like it or not:
33
-
34
-
- Ajax, Single Page App, infinite loading, “click to display”, instant search, etc.
35
-
- JS web frameworks: React, Vue, Angular & others
36
-
37
-
### Chrome is not the right tool
38
-
39
-
If we need Javascript, why not use a real web browser? Take a huge desktop application, hack it, and run it on the server. Hundreds or thousands of instances of Chrome if you use it at scale. Are you sure it’s such a good idea?
40
-
41
-
- Heavy on RAM and CPU, expensive to run
42
-
- Hard to package, deploy and maintain at scale
43
-
- Bloated, lots of features are not useful in headless usage
44
-
45
-
### Lightpanda is built for performance
46
-
47
-
If we want both Javascript and performance in a true headless browser, we need to start from scratch. Not another iteration of Chromium, really from a blank page. Crazy right? But that’s we did:
48
-
49
-
- Not based on Chromium, Blink or WebKit
50
-
- Low-level system programming language (Zig) with optimisations in mind
51
-
- Opinionated: without graphical rendering
52
-
53
-
## Status
54
-
55
-
Lightpanda is still a work in progress and is currently at a Beta stage.
56
-
57
-
:warning: You should expect most websites to fail or crash.
58
-
59
-
Here are the key features we have implemented:
60
-
61
-
-[x] HTTP loader
62
-
-[x] HTML parser and DOM tree (based on Netsurf libs)
63
-
-[x] Javascript support (v8)
64
-
-[x] Basic DOM APIs
65
-
-[x] Ajax
66
-
-[x] XHR API
67
-
-[x] Fetch API
68
-
-[x] DOM dump
69
-
-[x] Basic CDP/websockets server
70
-
71
-
NOTE: There are hundreds of Web APIs. Developing a browser (even just for headless mode) is a huge task. Coverage will increase over time.
72
-
73
-
You can also follow the progress of our Javascript support in our dedicated [zig-js-runtime](https://github.com/lightpanda-io/zig-js-runtime#development) project.
74
-
75
28
## Quick start
76
29
77
30
### Install from the nightly builds
@@ -271,3 +224,50 @@ Lightpanda accepts pull requests through GitHub.
271
224
272
225
You have to sign our [CLA](CLA.md) during the pull request process otherwise
273
226
we're not able to accept your contributions.
227
+
228
+
## Why?
229
+
230
+
### Javascript execution is mandatory for the modern web
231
+
232
+
In the good old days, scraping a webpage was as easy as making an HTTP request, cURL-like. It’s not possible anymore, because Javascript is everywhere, like it or not:
233
+
234
+
- Ajax, Single Page App, infinite loading, “click to display”, instant search, etc.
235
+
- JS web frameworks: React, Vue, Angular & others
236
+
237
+
### Chrome is not the right tool
238
+
239
+
If we need Javascript, why not use a real web browser? Take a huge desktop application, hack it, and run it on the server. Hundreds or thousands of instances of Chrome if you use it at scale. Are you sure it’s such a good idea?
240
+
241
+
- Heavy on RAM and CPU, expensive to run
242
+
- Hard to package, deploy and maintain at scale
243
+
- Bloated, lots of features are not useful in headless usage
244
+
245
+
### Lightpanda is built for performance
246
+
247
+
If we want both Javascript and performance in a true headless browser, we need to start from scratch. Not another iteration of Chromium, really from a blank page. Crazy right? But that’s we did:
248
+
249
+
- Not based on Chromium, Blink or WebKit
250
+
- Low-level system programming language (Zig) with optimisations in mind
251
+
- Opinionated: without graphical rendering
252
+
253
+
## Status
254
+
255
+
Lightpanda is still a work in progress and is currently at a Beta stage.
256
+
257
+
:warning: You should expect most websites to fail or crash.
258
+
259
+
Here are the key features we have implemented:
260
+
261
+
-[x] HTTP loader
262
+
-[x] HTML parser and DOM tree (based on Netsurf libs)
263
+
-[x] Javascript support (v8)
264
+
-[x] Basic DOM APIs
265
+
-[x] Ajax
266
+
-[x] XHR API
267
+
-[x] Fetch API
268
+
-[x] DOM dump
269
+
-[x] Basic CDP/websockets server
270
+
271
+
NOTE: There are hundreds of Web APIs. Developing a browser (even just for headless mode) is a huge task. Coverage will increase over time.
272
+
273
+
You can also follow the progress of our Javascript support in our dedicated [zig-js-runtime](https://github.com/lightpanda-io/zig-js-runtime#development) project.
0 commit comments