# Scraper Research: Puppeteer Alternatives

## Research Summary

I evaluated several alternatives to Puppeteer for web scraping. Here are my findings:

### Top Contender: Playwright ✅
**Status:** Already installed (v1.57.0)

**Key Advantages over Puppeteer:**

1. **Built-in Auto-Waiting**
   - No more arbitrary `sleep()` calls
   - `waitForSelector()` waits intelligently for elements
   - `waitForFunction()` waits until custom conditions are met
   - `waitForResponse()` waits for network requests to complete

2. **Better Selectors**
   - `page.locator()` is more robust than `page.$()`
   - Supports text-based selectors (`getByText()`, `getByRole()`)
   - Chainable selectors for complex queries

3. **Multiple Browser Support**
   - Chromium (Chrome/Edge)
   - Firefox
   - WebKit (Safari)
   - Can switch between browsers with one line change

4. **Faster & More Reliable**
   - Better resource management
   - Faster execution
   - More stable for dynamic content

5. **Better Debugging**
   - Built-in tracing (`trace.start()`, `trace.stop()`)
   - Video recording out of the box
   - Screenshot API

### Other Options Considered

| Tool | Status | Verdict |
|------|--------|---------|
| **Selenium** | Not installed | Mature but slower, more complex API |
| **Cypress** | Not installed | Focus on testing, overkill for scraping |
| **Cheerio** | Available | Fast but no JS execution - won't work for Reonomy |
| **JSDOM** | Available | Similar to Cheerio - no JS execution |
| **Puppeteer-Extra** | Not installed | Still Puppeteer underneath |
| **Zombie.js** | Not installed | Less maintained, limited features |

## Recommendation: Switch to Playwright

For the Reonomy scraper, Playwright is the clear winner because:
1. ✅ Already installed in the project
2. ✅ No arbitrary sleeps needed for dynamic content
3. ✅ Better handling of the 30-second contact details wait
4. ✅ More reliable element selection
5. ✅ Faster execution

## Key Changes in Playwright Version

### Puppeteer (Current)
```javascript
await sleep(8000);  // Arbitrary wait
const element = await page.$('selector');
await element.click();
```

### Playwright (New)
```javascript
await page.waitForSelector('selector', { state: 'visible', timeout: 30000 });
await page.locator('selector').click();
```

### Waiting for Contact Details

**Puppeteer:**
```javascript
// Manual polling with sleep()
for (let i = 0; i < 30; i++) {
  await sleep(1000);
  const data = await extractOwnerTabData(page);
  if (data.emails.length > 0 || data.phones.length > 0) break;
}
```

**Playwright:**
```javascript
// Intelligent wait until condition is met
await page.waitForFunction(
  () => {
    const emails = document.querySelectorAll('a[href^="mailto:"]');
    const phones = document.querySelectorAll('a[href^="tel:"]');
    return emails.length > 0 || phones.length > 0;
  },
  { timeout: 30000 }
);
```

## Implementation

The Playwright version will be saved as: `reonomy-scraper-v11-playwright.js`
