The process of web scraping has become a useful practice to gather data from various sites for the purpose of analysis, automation, or research. Smart website designs have made it even more challenging. Most websites these days usually have frontend JavaScript frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular. These frameworks transform websites into single-page applications (SPAs) and these applications often load the data dynamically based on user interactions or data fetches from APIs.
If you try scraping them using traditional Python libraries like requests and BeautifulSoup, you’ll likely fail or end up with incomplete data, because the content isn’t rendered in the initial HTML.
In this article, we will explore at using Python to address these problems.
The following illustrates the modern UI frameworks problems for scraping:
React and Angular get the actual HTML content through JavaScript once the page gets rendered.
An API call or a user click may change the page structure.
Single-page applications may have their internal routing, rendering their links stagnant.
These issues mean that tools that only read the raw HTML of a page can’t “see” what the user sees.
In order to scrape these particular web pages, you will need to be able to execute JavaScript and manipulate the webpage document object.
We built a pipeline that scraped complete textual data from JavaScript-rendered sites powered by modern UI frameworks. Instead of relying solely on static HTML parsers like BeautifulSoup, we used Playwright, a headless browser automation tool.
This method proved highly effective for scraping dynamic, single-page websites, something static scrapers would fail to achieve.
Sure, but you would need a JavaScript-rendering tool like Playwright or Selenium. They won’t function on their own with only traditional HTML parsers.
Scraping exists in a legally ambiguous space. Always check terms of service and the robots.txt file. Stay away from sensitive, private, or copyrighted material.
Static pages present the entire content within HTML during the first response, while dynamic pages present the HTML first and load the content afterward through JavaScript.
Single Page Applications SPAs is an HTML page that has all of the components stored. While using JavaScript, they can update content dynamically without the need to reload the page fully.
You would be trying to scrape an unfinished or empty page. That is because BeautifulSoup does not execute JavaScript and only reads the initial HTML.
Playwright is newer, faster, and has wider browser support right out of the box. Selenium is a more mature option with a deeper documentation base. They both function well, but for dynamic content scraping, Playwright is usually the go to choice.
Extracting data from contemporary websites that utilize frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular is no longer possible with traditional scraping tools. These single-page websites display information only after it has been loaded, so it is important to have tools that can execute JavaScript to the full.
With tools such as Playwright, you can extract the full-page content and even wait for particular components to display so you can pull the information the same way a true user would. When combined with intelligent data processing, this can reveal a wealth of information concealed behind dynamic user interfaces.
If you’re looking to extract data from modern UI frameworks, your scraping strategy needs to evolve. Python gives you the tools, you just need to know when and how to use them.
At Coditude, we specialize in designing robust scraping pipelines that adapt to the complexities of modern web applications. Whether it's single-page apps built with React or content-heavy dynamic websites, our engineers leverage headless browsers, DOM-aware logic, and NLP to extract real value from the web.
Let’s build your next data-driven advantage, reach out to Coditude and get started.
