Chromeless
Dev tools
browser automation
SHOW HN2017
385points
89comments
#38of 2,242 in 2017
Top 2%of 2017 by points
How HN took it
CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments
12 positive, 28 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 10 critical, out of 51 comments about the project. Thread score +0.00.
Idea: 6 for, 1 againstDesign: 4 for, 0 againstExecution: 0 for, 3 againstPricing: 0 for, 3 againstDocs: 0 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Parallel execution on Lambda could cut test times sharply
From 3 comments
This would have been awesome to have back when I was heavy in to the UI test automation game. Our best option at that point was a spot instance EC2 fleet and analyzing commits to…
shortj on HNSo basically if I had 200 automations I could run them on 200 lambdas and have them finish by the time the slowest one finishes? That pretty awesome, specially for testing. For…
dlisboa on HNLooks super promising, the API is really neat and running the tests in parallel is a big plus! Awesome work!
yamafaktory on HN
Objections
Lambda costs can add up beyond the free tier
From 3 comments
> For many cases this would also fall under the free tier since it not that many requests/usage...it kinda seems too good to be true (since I've ran into the same trap a couple…
bald on HNDo the math. If you're suggesting running all the tests, drastically increasing your compute volume, it's probably cheaper to use a dedicated instance running at max CPU…
toomuchtodo on HNThis is a really cool project, but looking closer at the API and issues raised it seems that the features are being over-promised. - "Do pretty much everything you've used…
kensoh on HN
Claims over-promise compared with mature tools like PhantomJS, Nightmare and Selenium
From 1 comment
This is a really cool project, but looking closer at the API and issues raised it seems that the features are being over-promised. - "Do pretty much everything you've used…
kensoh on HN
AWS IP addresses are often blocked by sites
From 2 comments
I've got the impression that lots of sites block AWS IP addresses. I wonder if this would hamper the practical use of this on Lambda. I'm doing something similar, and this…
afandian on HNIndeed, so many of AWS’s IP ranges are used for DDoS and malicious behaviour they end up getting blacklisted due to their poor reputation. It’s a bit like using one third party…
mrmondo on HN
Requests
PDF support
From 2 comments
@schickling - When will the PDF support arrive? https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless/blob/master/docs/api.md#api-pdf
titel on HNNice tool Some API documentation says: pdf() - Not implemented yet Not implemented yet How about you deprecate the API for now but reveal the purpose please.
craptocurrency on HN
Google Cloud Functions and Azure support
From 1 comment
How difficult would it be to also support google cloud functions and the azure offerings? This seems like a really useful standard tool that lots of people might want to use. CI…
ivan_ah on HN
Python wrapper or other language bindings
From 2 comments
Wish it had a python wrapper.
pknerd on HNReally awesome. Will definitely be usefull for a project I am working on. Any plan to support other languages beside JS?
hartator on HN
Webdriver-compatible API
From 1 comment
Cool. Now can you use it with webdriver functions instead of re-inventing the API?
megamindbrian on HN
Questions
How font rendering and fonts work on Lambda
From 1 comment
This looks great! As the developer of an automated screenshot solution (https://urlbox.io), one of the major pain points when taking screenshots is font-rendering. I wonder how…
cjr on HN
How cookies and downloads are handled
From 2 comments
How do cookies work in Chromeless? Can I specify a cookiejar to use? Can I keep cookies separated?
1024core on HNThe last time I tried headless Chrome, file downloads were a PITA. Has anyone tried downloads with Chromeless?
coredog64 on HN
GPU support
From 1 comment
Can any headless browser solution be considered complete without GPU support? A large percentage of sites use GPU enabled and accelerated features and without GPU support,…
colordrops on HN
Alternatives named
NightmareJS
From 1 comment
I'm really excited to finally open-source Chromeless. We've used NightmareJS and similar tools before to run integration tests but these basically added ~20min to each build.…
schickling on HN
PhantomJS, Selenium, WebdriverIO, Nightwatch, Zombie
From 2 comments
This is a really cool project, but looking closer at the API and issues raised it seems that the features are being over-promised. - "Do pretty much everything you've used…
kensoh on HNI'll just add some related projects I've used / tried in the past. The promise of fast execution time in parallel is tempting with Chromeless. Thanks for sharing. -…
inertial on HN
Chrominator, Navalia, Chromy, GhostJS, AutoGCD, Lambdium
From 3 comments
shamless plug: i've also written a high level api on top of the chrome remote debugger chrominator [1] similar idea. chrominator use promises instead of a fluent api. it also…
gowan on HN[1] Chrominator looks interesting. jesg/gowan is the maintainer for PhantomJS GhostDriver, so the API looks extensive. Another project that I heard recently is Navalia [4], which…
kensoh on HNShameless plug: I've been hacking on headless chrome in AWS Lambda but with selenium webdriver support [1], also using the binaries from the serverless-chrome [2] project. To…
smithclay on HN