What is a Headless Browser?

A headless browser processes the web exactly like a normal browser, but it doesn’t render an interactive user interface. So instead of a human being clicking and scrolling, you control a headless browser with code. You can take all of the same actions, including clicking, scrolling, playing videos, running JavaScript, and downloading files. However, in a headless browser, you automate this behavior, rather than having to do it by hand.

This unlocks a number of powerful new behaviors. For instance, you can write a headless browser script that adds a random product to the cart on your e-commerce store and checks out with a test credit card. Then you can have this automation run every ten minutes, ensuring that if your site stops working, you are the first one to know about it.

Typical use-cases include automated testing, web scraping, image generation, and performance monitoring. Headless browser become exceptionally powerful when integrated into your CI/CD pipeline or your API endpoints. Within these contexts, your automations enhance your application’s behavior, stability, or dynamicism.

How can BrowserCat help with running headless browsers?

BrowserCat provides a fast, stable, scalable browser swarm, with single line config for any of the above use-cases. We believe that browser automation can make every one of our users 100x more productive, and we do everything in our power to make getting there as easy as possible.

Try our service entirely free, and help us help you.