Puppeteer and Selenium: Top Web Automation Tools in 2025

When it comes to automating browser interactions and extracting data, two open-source libraries often come to mind: ProxyTee and Selenium. While both are powerful tools, they operate differently. Puppeteer intercepts Chrome’s network requests, translating them into commands for the web engine, whereas Selenium relays commands to a browser for interacting with web applications.

This article dives into the main differences between Puppeteer and Selenium, helping you determine which tool is best suited for your specific use case. Also, we will explore how ProxyTee’s residential proxies can be leveraged in your browser automation process.

What is ProxyTee?

ProxyTee is a leading provider of rotating residential proxies. We provide tools and solutions that make it easy to navigate the web anonymously. Our infrastructure, built around a global network of IPs, is perfect for all types of uses, from basic web scraping to complex market intelligence projects.

Key Features of ProxyTee:

• Unlimited Bandwidth: Say goodbye to overage fees with unlimited bandwidth.
• Global IP Coverage: Over 20 million IPs from 100+ countries to ensure global reach.
• Multiple Protocol Support: Both HTTP and SOCKS5 protocols supported, providing versatility for any task.
• User-Friendly Interface: Easy to use platform to get started quickly with a simple, clean GUI
• Auto-Rotation: Automatic IP rotation (3-60 mins) prevents blocks and bans when scraping the web
• API Integration: Easily integrate into various applications with simple API

What Is Puppeteer?

Puppeteer is an open-source Node.js library designed for Chromium-based browsers like Chrome. It offers control through a high-level API that leverages the DevTools Protocol. This makes it perfect for automated testing, generating screenshots, creating PDFs, testing Chrome extensions, SEO content rendering, and of course, web scraping.

What Is Selenium?

Selenium is an open-source framework for automating web application testing. It uses the WebDriver protocol to mimic real user interactions. Selenium offers tools such as Selenium IDE, WebDriver, and Grid, facilitating the automation of complex scenarios within web applications. It’s a great choice if your primary needs are testing, not necessarily scraping.

Puppeteer vs. Selenium: Key Differences

Let’s compare Puppeteer and Selenium based on several key criteria:

1️⃣ Browser Support

Puppeteer primarily works with Chromium-based browsers like Chrome and Brave, providing direct access to advanced features and APIs. However, its support for other browsers like Firefox and Safari is very limited. On the other hand, Selenium supports a wider range of browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge), which is crucial if your job includes cross browser compatibility testing. However, the varying ways browsers interpret web content can lead to inconsistencies and additional effort to maintain synchronization across different browsers.

2️⃣ Ecosystem

Puppeteer’s ecosystem is growing, yet, it still lags behind the well established Selenium, first released in 2004. While Puppeteer has made strides, as evidenced by its 101% increase in downloads in recent years, Selenium’s maturity and diverse collection of tools are hard to compete with. Selenium boasts the Selenium Grid, which allows you to run tests in parallel and IDE for quick test execution.

3️⃣ Language Support

Puppeteer is built primarily for Node.js and JavaScript, ideal for JavaScript developers. Its ability to execute JavaScript within web pages is beneficial for interacting with dynamic pages. Selenium, in contrast, supports multiple languages such as Java, Python, C#, and Ruby, widening its appeal across developer communities.

4️⃣ Use Cases

Puppeteer excels in tasks requiring deep integration with browser functionalities, like generating page screenshots, scraping dynamic content from SPAs, and creating SEO-friendly content. Selenium, with its WebDriver protocol, is ideal for cross-browser testing. It is particularly good for scraping dynamic content from pages or collecting data from user interactive parts of web pages.

5️⃣ Setup Complexity

Puppeteer comes with Chromium, making it easy to install, but working with it does need Node.js and JavaScript know-how. While setup might seem easy initially, dealing with dependencies and project requirements might be difficult. Selenium, requires installing a library and setting up multiple drivers for different browsers, which is particularly tricky for people new to the tech.

6️⃣ Speed and Resource Usage

Puppeteer tends to be faster and more resource efficient than Selenium, especially in headless mode, but keep in mind that, even though the Chromium browser comes bundled in Puppeteer, the overhead of multiple instances can become an issue. While Selenium has more overhead because it needs the browser driver to send and receive commands from the browser instances, this process needs maintenance of scripts with elements whose behaviors change frequently, adding an overhead in terms of time and resources needed.

7️⃣ Community and Documentation

Google maintains Puppeteer, which means good documentation and growing community support. That said, Selenium has a larger community and a significant advantage, supported by third party tutorials and multiple resources.

8️⃣ Cross-Browser Testing

Due to Puppeteer’s limited scope to Chromium-based browsers, its usefulness is limited to that and isn’t suited for cross-browser testing. Selenium’s extensive browser support, on the other hand, makes it perfect for cross-browser testing and consistent functionality across multiple web platforms. To fully optimize your browser testing, use Selenium.

Enhance Web Automation with ProxyTee

Whether you choose Selenium or Puppeteer for web automation, you can improve your data collection by integrating a robust proxy solution. ProxyTee offers Residential Proxies and can help you overcome website access restrictions. Its features allow you to stay anonymous and scrape websites without being blocked.

One of ProxyTee’s premier solutions is its Unlimited Residential Proxies, designed for users looking for an efficient, reliable, and cost-effective way to collect data on the web.

ProxyTee offers a complete solution:

• Unlimited bandwidth for residential proxies: No limitations or data caps, suitable for large scale projects
• Rotating Residential IPs: Keep your activity private by changing IPs every few minutes to avoid detection
• Precise Geotargeting: Target data from the city, state, or country level
• Unbeatable Value: Cost-effective alternative to competitor offerings

Integrating ProxyTee with Puppeteer

Integrating ProxyTee with Puppeteer is simple. You can do this by directing your Puppeteer traffic through a ProxyTee proxy server.

First, set up your JavaScript environment, and add the following code snippet, be sure to replace `YOUR_USERNAME` and `YOUR_PASSWORD` with your credentials.

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');
const AUTH = 'YOUR_USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD';
const PROXY_SERVER = `socks5://${AUTH}@proxy.proxytee.com:1080`;

async function main() {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
        args: [
            `--proxy-server=${PROXY_SERVER}`
        ]
    });

  try {
    const page = await browser.newPage();
    await page.goto('https://proxytee.com/', { timeout: 2 * 60 * 1000 });
  }
    catch (error) {
     console.error('Error during navigation:', error);
   }
  finally {
     await browser.close();
  }
}

if (require.main === module) {
  main().catch(err => {
    console.error(err.stack || err);
    process.exit(1);
  });
}

Integrating ProxyTee with Selenium

You can configure your Selenium WebDriver to use ProxyTee proxies by providing the proxy IP and port, as shown in the code snippet. Please use your credentials.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

AUTH = 'YOUR_USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD'
PROXY_SERVER = f'socks5://{AUTH}@proxy.proxytee.com:1080'


chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
chrome_options.add_argument('--proxy-server=%s' % PROXY_SERVER)

driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options)

try:
  driver.get("https://proxytee.com/")
except Exception as e:
    print("An error occurred:", e)

finally:
    driver.quit()

Enhance Your Automation With the Right Support

Both Puppeteer and Selenium are robust tools for web automation. Puppeteer excels in JavaScript environments and when used with Chromium-based browsers for faster, efficient testing and development. Selenium is better for cross-browser testing with multiple programming languages. But you can also benefit from ProxyTee no matter which choice you make by adding a residential proxy solution to it.

If you’re looking to boost your automation with efficient and private residential proxies, ProxyTee offers the tools that will benefit your projects. With our global coverage, unlimited bandwidth, affordable pricing, and high quality infrastructure, you’ll find a valuable companion to your browser automation process.