python - Running Selenium with Headless Chrome Webdriver

60

votes

So I'm trying some stuff out with selenium and I really want it to be quick.

So my thought is that running it with headless chrome would make my script faster.

First is that assumption correct, or does it not matter if i run my script with a headless driver?

Anyways I still want to get it to work to run headless, but I somehow can't, I tried different things and most suggested that it would work as said here in the October update

How to configure ChromeDriver to initiate Chrome browser in Headless mode through Selenium?

But when I try that, I get weird console output and it still doesn't seem to work.

Any tipps appreciated.

pythonseleniumgoogle-chromeselenium-chromedrivergoogle-chrome-headless

That's pretty much outdated, or what do you mean? Maybe I miss a point, could you clarify what you mean? - Rhynden

headless won't make it run noticeably faster - Corey Goldberg

@CoreyGoldberg how so, do you have any sources? - Rhynden

you should benchmark both - Corey Goldberg

@Rhynden What is the weird console output? - Mate Mrše

107

votes

To run chrome-headless just add --headless via chrome_options.add_argument, i.e.:

from selenium import webdriver 
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
chrome_options = Options()
#chrome_options.add_argument("--disable-extensions")
#chrome_options.add_argument("--disable-gpu")
#chrome_options.add_argument("--no-sandbox") # linux only
chrome_options.add_argument("--headless")
# chrome_options.headless = True # also works
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options)
start_url = "https://duckgo.com"
driver.get(start_url)
print(driver.page_source.encode("utf-8"))
driver.quit()
# b'<!DOCTYPE html><html xmlns="http://www....

So my thought is that running it with headless chrome would make my script faster.

Try using chrome options like --disable-extensions or --disable-gpu and benchmark it, but I wouldn't count with much improvement.

References: headless-chrome

Note: As of today, when running chrome headless on Windows., you should include the --disable-gpu flag See crbug.com/737678

9

votes

Install & run containerized Chrome:

docker pull selenium/standalone-chrome
docker run --rm -d -p 4444:4444 --shm-size=2g selenium/standalone-chrome

Connect using webdriver.Remote:

driver = webdriver.Remote('http://localhost:4444/wd/hub', DesiredCapabilities.CHROME)
driver.set_window_size(1280, 1024)
driver.get('https://www.google.com')

5

votes

from time import sleep

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

chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--headless")

driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path="./chromedriver", options=chrome_options)
url = "https://stackguides.com/questions/53657215/running-selenium-with-headless-chrome-webdriver"
driver.get(url)

sleep(5)

h1 = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//h1[@itemprop='name']").text
print(h1)

Then I run script on our local machine

➜ python script.py
Running Selenium with Headless Chrome Webdriver

It is working and it is with headless Chrome.

4

votes

If you are using Linux environment, may be you have to add --no-sandbox as well and also specific window size settings. The --no-sandbox flag is no needed on Windows if you set user container properly.

Use --disable-gpu only on Windows. Other platforms no longer require it. The --disable-gpu flag is a temporary work around for a few bugs.

//Headless chrome browser and configure
            WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
            ChromeOptions chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();
            chromeOptions.addArguments("--no-sandbox");
            chromeOptions.addArguments("--headless");
            chromeOptions.addArguments("disable-gpu");
//          chromeOptions.addArguments("window-size=1400,2100"); // Linux should be activate
            driver = new ChromeDriver(chromeOptions);

1

votes

Todo (tested on headless server Debian Linux 9.4):

Do this:

# install chrome
curl -sS -o - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | apt-key add -
echo "deb [arch=amd64]  http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list
apt-get -y update
apt-get -y install google-chrome-stable

# install chrome driver
wget https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/77.0.3865.40/chromedriver_linux64.zip
unzip chromedriver_linux64.zip
mv chromedriver /usr/bin/chromedriver
chown root:root /usr/bin/chromedriver
chmod +x /usr/bin/chromedriver

Install selenium:

pip install selenium

and run this Python code:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
options = Options()
options.add_argument("no-sandbox")
options.add_argument("headless")
options.add_argument("start-maximized")
options.add_argument("window-size=1900,1080"); 
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=options, executable_path="/usr/bin/chromedriver")
driver.get("https://www.example.com")
html = driver.page_source
print(html)

0

votes

Once you have selenium and web driver installed. Below worked for me with headless Chrome on linux cluster :

from selenium import webdriver
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument("--headless")
options.add_argument("--disable-extensions")
options.add_argument("--disable-dev-shm-usage")
options.add_argument("--no-sandbox")
options.add_experimental_option("prefs",{"download.default_directory":"/databricks/driver"})
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=options)

python - Running Selenium with Headless Chrome Webdriver

6 Answers