What is the best Java library for web scraping?

JSoup is the best Java library for web scraping static content, while HtmlUnit and Selenium WebDriver are better for JavaScript-heavy sites. For enterprise needs, consider web scraping APIs.

How do you scrape JavaScript-rendered content in Java?

Use HtmlUnit or Selenium WebDriver to execute JavaScript and access dynamically rendered content. HtmlUnit is headless and faster, while Selenium provides more browser compatibility.

Java Web Scraping Tutorial 2025

Java remains one of the most powerful languages for enterprise web scraping in 2025. This comprehensive guide covers everything from basic HTML parsing with JSoup to advanced JavaScript-heavy scraping with Selenium and HtmlUnit.

Whether you're building a data pipeline for business intelligence, monitoring competitor prices, or collecting research data, this tutorial will give you the skills to scrape any website efficiently and responsibly.

If you're considering other languages or tools, check out our comprehensive comparison of modern browser automation tools including Playwright and Puppeteer.

Java Web Scraping Libraries Compared

Choose the right tool for your scraping needs. Here's how the top Java web scraping libraries compare:

JSoup BEST FOR STATIC

Perfect for: Static HTML content, fast parsing, CSS selectors

Speed: Very Fast
Memory: Low usage
JavaScript: No support
Learning curve: Easy
Best use case: News sites, blogs, static e-commerce

Official Resources: Website | GitHub | Cookbook

HtmlUnit BEST FOR JS

Perfect for: JavaScript-heavy sites, headless browsing, AJAX

Speed: Fast
Memory: Medium usage
JavaScript: Full support
Learning curve: Moderate
Best use case: SPAs, dynamic content, forms

Official Resources: Website | GitHub | Getting Started

Selenium WebDriver

Perfect for: Complex interactions, CAPTCHAs, testing scenarios

Speed: Slower
Memory: High usage
JavaScript: Full browser support
Learning curve: Complex
Best use case: Complex workflows, authentication

Official Resources: Website | GitHub | Java Docs

Prerequisites & Setup

Before diving into web scraping, ensure you have the proper development environment configured:

What You'll Need

Java 8+ (Java 11 or 17 recommended)

Maven or Gradle for dependency management

IDE (IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, or VS Code)

Basic Java knowledge (classes, methods, exceptions)

HTML/CSS understanding for element selection

HTTP concepts (requests, responses, headers)

Create a New Maven Project

Start by creating a new Maven project with this basic structure:

pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 
         http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    
    <groupId>com.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>java-web-scraper</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    
    <properties>
        <maven.compiler.source>11</maven.compiler.source>
        <maven.compiler.target>11</maven.compiler.target>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    </properties>
    
    <dependencies>
        <!-- JSoup for HTML parsing -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.jsoup</groupId>
            <artifactId>jsoup</artifactId>
            <version>1.16.1</version>
        </dependency>
        
        <!-- HtmlUnit for JavaScript support -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>net.sourceforge.htmlunit</groupId>
            <artifactId>htmlunit</artifactId>
            <version>3.3.0</version>
        </dependency>
        
        <!-- Selenium WebDriver -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>
            <artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>
            <version>4.15.0</version>
        </dependency>
        
        <!-- Chrome WebDriver Manager -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.github.bonigarcia</groupId>
            <artifactId>webdrivermanager</artifactId>
            <version>5.6.2</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</project>

Maven Dependencies & Resources

Find the latest versions and documentation for each library:

JSoup: Maven Central | Download Options
HtmlUnit: Maven Central | Dependencies Guide
Selenium: Maven Central | Official Downloads
WebDriverManager: Maven Central | GitHub Repository

JSoup: Static Content Scraping

JSoup is the go-to library for scraping static HTML content. It's fast, lightweight, and perfect for most web scraping tasks. Learn more in the official JSoup cookbook.

Basic JSoup Connection and Parsing

Start with a simple example that connects to a website and extracts basic information:

BasicJSoupScraper.java

import org.jsoup.Jsoup;
import org.jsoup.nodes.Document;
import org.jsoup.nodes.Element;
import org.jsoup.select.Elements;

public class BasicJSoupScraper {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            // Connect to the website with proper headers
            Document doc = Jsoup.connect("https://books.toscrape.com/")
                    .userAgent("Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36")
                    .timeout(10000)
                    .get();
            
            System.out.println("Page title: " + doc.title());
            
            // Extract all book titles
            Elements bookTitles = doc.select("h3 a");
            System.out.println("Found " + bookTitles.size() + " books:");
            
            for (Element title : bookTitles) {
                System.out.println("- " + title.attr("title"));
            }
            
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("Error scraping: " + e.getMessage());
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Advanced JSoup: Data Extraction and Cleaning

Extract structured data and handle edge cases with proper error handling:

AdvancedJSoupScraper.java

import org.jsoup.Jsoup;
import org.jsoup.nodes.Document;
import org.jsoup.nodes.Element;
import org.jsoup.select.Elements;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

public class AdvancedJSoupScraper {
    
    public static class Book {
        private String title;
        private String price;
        private String availability;
        private String rating;
        
        // Constructor, getters, setters
        public Book(String title, String price, String availability, String rating) {
            this.title = title;
            this.price = price;
            this.availability = availability;
            this.rating = rating;
        }
        
        @Override
        public String toString() {
            return String.format("Book{title='%s', price='%s', rating='%s', availability='%s'}", 
                    title, price, rating, availability);
        }
    }
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<Book> books = scrapeBooks("https://books.toscrape.com/");
        
        // Print first 5 books
        books.stream().limit(5).forEach(System.out::println);
        
        System.out.println("\nTotal books scraped: " + books.size());
    }
    
    public static List<Book> scrapeBooks(String url) {
        List<Book> books = new ArrayList<>();
        
        try {
            Document doc = Jsoup.connect(url)
                    .userAgent("Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36")
                    .timeout(10000)
                    .followRedirects(true)
                    .get();
            
            Elements bookContainers = doc.select("ol.row li article.product_pod");
            
            for (Element container : bookContainers) {
                try {
                    // Extract title with fallback
                    String title = container.select("h3 a").attr("title");
                    if (title.isEmpty()) {
                        title = container.select("h3 a").text();
                    }
                    
                    // Extract price and clean it
                    String price = container.select("p.price_color").text();
                    price = price.replaceAll("[^\\d.]", ""); // Keep only digits and dots
                    
                    // Extract availability
                    String availability = container.select("p.instock.availability").text();
                    availability = availability.replace("In stock (", "").replace(" available)", "");
                    
                    // Extract rating from class name
                    String rating = "0";
                    Elements ratingElements = container.select("p.star-rating");
                    if (!ratingElements.isEmpty()) {
                        String ratingClass = ratingElements.first().className();
                        rating = extractRatingFromClass(ratingClass);
                    }
                    
                    books.add(new Book(title, price, availability, rating));
                    
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    System.err.println("Error processing book: " + e.getMessage());
                    continue; // Skip this book and continue with next
                }
            }
            
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("Error connecting to website: " + e.getMessage());
        }
        
        return books;
    }
    
    private static String extractRatingFromClass(String className) {
        Map<String, String> ratingMap = new HashMap<>();
        ratingMap.put("One", "1");
        ratingMap.put("Two", "2");
        ratingMap.put("Three", "3");
        ratingMap.put("Four", "4");
        ratingMap.put("Five", "5");
        
        for (String key : ratingMap.keySet()) {
            if (className.contains(key)) {
                return ratingMap.get(key);
            }
        }
        return "0";
    }
}

HtmlUnit: JavaScript-Enabled Scraping

When websites rely heavily on JavaScript, HtmlUnit provides a headless browser that can execute JavaScript and handle dynamic content. Explore the getting started guide and GitHub repository for more examples.

When to Use HtmlUnit

Content loaded via AJAX calls
Single Page Applications (SPAs)
Dynamic forms and interactions
Sites that modify DOM with JavaScript
When you need faster performance than Selenium

Basic HtmlUnit Setup

Configure HtmlUnit for JavaScript-heavy websites:

HtmlUnitScraper.java

import com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.WebClient;
import com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HtmlPage;
import com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HtmlElement;
import java.util.List;

public class HtmlUnitScraper {
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Configure WebClient
        try (final WebClient webClient = new WebClient()) {
            // Configure browser settings
            webClient.getOptions().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
            webClient.getOptions().setCssEnabled(false);
            webClient.getOptions().setUseInsecureSSL(true);
            webClient.getOptions().setThrowExceptionOnFailingStatusCode(false);
            webClient.getOptions().setThrowExceptionOnScriptError(false);
            webClient.getOptions().setTimeout(10000);
            
            // Set realistic user agent
            webClient.addRequestHeader("User-Agent", 
                "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36");
            
            // Load the page and wait for JavaScript
            final HtmlPage page = webClient.getPage("https://quotes.toscrape.com/js/");
            
            // Wait for JavaScript to load content (important!)
            webClient.waitForBackgroundJavaScript(3000);
            
            System.out.println("Page title: " + page.getTitleText());
            
            // Extract quotes using XPath
            List<HtmlElement> quotes = page.getByXPath("//div[@class='quote']");
            
            System.out.println("Found " + quotes.size() + " quotes:");
            
            for (HtmlElement quote : quotes) {
                String text = quote.getFirstByXPath(".//span[@class='text']").getTextContent();
                String author = quote.getFirstByXPath(".//small[@class='author']").getTextContent();
                
                System.out.println("Quote: " + text);
                System.out.println("Author: " + author);
                System.out.println("---");
            }
            
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Advanced HtmlUnit: Forms and Interactions

Handle form submissions and interactive elements:

AdvancedHtmlUnitScraper.java

import com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.WebClient;
import com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.*;

public class AdvancedHtmlUnitScraper {
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try (final WebClient webClient = new WebClient()) {
            // Configure for AJAX-heavy sites
            webClient.getOptions().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
            webClient.getOptions().setCssEnabled(false);
            webClient.getOptions().setUseInsecureSSL(true);
            webClient.getOptions().setThrowExceptionOnFailingStatusCode(false);
            webClient.getOptions().setThrowExceptionOnScriptError(false);
            
            // Increase timeout for slow JavaScript
            webClient.getOptions().setTimeout(15000);
            webClient.setJavaScriptTimeout(10000);
            
            // Load initial page
            HtmlPage page = webClient.getPage("https://httpbin.org/forms/post");
            
            // Find and fill form
            HtmlForm form = page.getFirstByXPath("//form");
            HtmlTextInput customerNameField = form.getInputByName("custname");
            HtmlTextInput customerTelField = form.getInputByName("custtel");
            HtmlTextInput customerEmailField = form.getInputByName("custemail");
            HtmlSelect sizeSelect = form.getSelectByName("size");
            HtmlTextArea commentsArea = form.getTextAreaByName("comments");
            
            // Fill form fields
            customerNameField.type("John Doe");
            customerTelField.type("555-1234");
            customerEmailField.type("john@example.com");
            sizeSelect.setSelectedAttribute("large", true);
            commentsArea.type("This is a test comment");
            
            // Submit form
            HtmlSubmitInput submitButton = form.getInputByValue("Submit order");
            HtmlPage resultPage = submitButton.click();
            
            // Wait for response
            webClient.waitForBackgroundJavaScript(2000);
            
            System.out.println("Form submitted successfully!");
            System.out.println("Response: " + resultPage.asNormalizedText());
            
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Selenium: Full Browser Automation

For the most complex scraping tasks requiring full browser functionality, Selenium WebDriver provides complete control over a real browser. The WebDriver documentation covers all supported languages and browsers.

For a detailed comparison with other browser automation tools, see our Playwright vs Selenium vs Puppeteer guide.

Selenium Setup with Chrome

Configure Selenium WebDriver for robust browser automation:

SeleniumScraper.java

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeOptions;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions;
import io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.WebDriverManager;
import java.time.Duration;
import java.util.List;

public class SeleniumScraper {
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Automatically manage ChromeDriver
        WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
        
        // Configure Chrome options
        ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
        options.addArguments("--headless"); // Run in background
        options.addArguments("--no-sandbox");
        options.addArguments("--disable-dev-shm-usage");
        options.addArguments("--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36");
        
        WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options);
        WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(10));
        
        try {
            // Navigate to page
            driver.get("https://quotes.toscrape.com/");
            
            // Wait for quotes to load
            wait.until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.className("quote")));
            
            // Find all quotes
            List<WebElement> quotes = driver.findElements(By.className("quote"));
            
            System.out.println("Found " + quotes.size() + " quotes:");
            
            for (WebElement quote : quotes) {
                String text = quote.findElement(By.className("text")).getText();
                String author = quote.findElement(By.className("author")).getText();
                
                System.out.println("Quote: " + text);
                System.out.println("Author: " + author);
                System.out.println("---");
            }
            
            // Navigate through pagination
            WebElement nextButton = driver.findElement(By.linkText("Next"));
            if (nextButton.isEnabled()) {
                nextButton.click();
                // Wait and scrape next page...
            }
            
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            driver.quit();
        }
    }
}

Advanced Selenium: Handling Dynamic Content

Deal with infinite scroll, AJAX loading, and complex interactions:

AdvancedSeleniumScraper.java

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeOptions;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.JavascriptExecutor;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions;
import org.openqa.selenium.interactions.Actions;
import io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.WebDriverManager;
import java.time.Duration;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.HashSet;

public class AdvancedSeleniumScraper {
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
        
        ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
        // options.addArguments("--headless"); // Comment out to see browser
        options.addArguments("--disable-blink-features=AutomationControlled");
        options.setExperimentalOption("excludeSwitches", new String[]{"enable-automation"});
        options.setExperimentalOption("useAutomationExtension", false);
        
        WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options);
        WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(15));
        JavascriptExecutor js = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
        
        // Remove webdriver property to avoid detection
        js.executeScript("Object.defineProperty(navigator, 'webdriver', {get: () => undefined})");
        
        try {
            driver.get("https://infinite-scroll.com/");
            
            Set<String> uniqueItems = new HashSet<>();
            int lastCount = 0;
            int noChangeCount = 0;
            
            // Infinite scroll handling
            while (noChangeCount < 3) { // Stop if no new content for 3 attempts
                // Scroll to bottom
                js.executeScript("window.scrollTo(0, document.body.scrollHeight);");
                
                // Wait for new content to load
                Thread.sleep(2000);
                
                // Check for loading indicator
                try {
                    wait.until(ExpectedConditions.invisibilityOfElementLocated(
                        By.className("loading")));
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    // Loading indicator might not exist
                }
                
                // Collect current items
                List<WebElement> items = driver.findElements(By.className("post"));
                
                for (WebElement item : items) {
                    try {
                        String title = item.findElement(By.tagName("h2")).getText();
                        if (!title.isEmpty()) {
                            uniqueItems.add(title);
                        }
                    } catch (Exception e) {
                        // Skip problematic items
                        continue;
                    }
                }
                
                System.out.println("Current items collected: " + uniqueItems.size());
                
                // Check if we got new items
                if (uniqueItems.size() == lastCount) {
                    noChangeCount++;
                } else {
                    noChangeCount = 0;
                    lastCount = uniqueItems.size();
                }
            }
            
            System.out.println("\nFinal results:");
            System.out.println("Total unique items: " + uniqueItems.size());
            
            // Print first 10 items
            uniqueItems.stream().limit(10).forEach(item -> 
                System.out.println("- " + item));
                
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            driver.quit();
        }
    }
}

Best Practices & Error Handling

Professional web scraping requires robust error handling, respect for websites, and efficient resource management.

Respect & Ethics

Check robots.txt before scraping
Add delays between requests (1-3 seconds)
Use realistic User-Agent headers
Don't overload servers with concurrent requests
Respect rate limits and server responses

Error Handling

Implement retry logic with exponential backoff
Handle network timeouts gracefully
Log errors for debugging
Validate data before processing
Use try-catch blocks around scraping operations

Performance

Reuse connections when possible
Close resources properly (WebDriver, WebClient)
Use connection pooling for multiple requests
Implement caching for repeated data
Monitor memory usage in long-running scrapers

Production-Ready Scraper Template

Here's a robust template that implements all best practices:

ProductionScraper.java

import org.jsoup.Jsoup;
import org.jsoup.nodes.Document;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import java.util.logging.Logger;
import java.util.logging.Level;

public class ProductionScraper {
    private static final Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(ProductionScraper.class.getName());
    private static final int MAX_RETRIES = 3;
    private static final long BASE_DELAY_MS = 1000;
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        ProductionScraper scraper = new ProductionScraper();
        scraper.scrapeWithRetry("https://example.com");
    }
    
    public Document scrapeWithRetry(String url) {
        for (int attempt = 1; attempt <= MAX_RETRIES; attempt++) {
            try {
                logger.info("Scraping attempt " + attempt + " for: " + url);
                
                Document doc = Jsoup.connect(url)
                        .userAgent("Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36")
                        .timeout(10000)
                        .followRedirects(true)
                        .ignoreHttpErrors(false) // Will throw exception on HTTP errors
                        .get();
                
                logger.info("Successfully scraped: " + url);
                
                // Add polite delay
                addDelay(BASE_DELAY_MS);
                
                return doc;
                
            } catch (Exception e) {
                logger.log(Level.WARNING, 
                    "Attempt " + attempt + " failed for " + url + ": " + e.getMessage());
                
                if (attempt == MAX_RETRIES) {
                    logger.log(Level.SEVERE, "All attempts failed for: " + url);
                    throw new RuntimeException("Failed to scrape after " + MAX_RETRIES + " attempts", e);
                }
                
                // Exponential backoff
                long delay = BASE_DELAY_MS * (long) Math.pow(2, attempt - 1);
                addDelay(delay);
            }
        }
        return null;
    }
    
    private void addDelay(long delayMs) {
        try {
            TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.sleep(delayMs);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
            throw new RuntimeException("Thread interrupted", e);
        }
    }
    
    public void checkRobotsTxt(String domain) {
        try {
            Document robotsTxt = Jsoup.connect(domain + "/robots.txt")
                    .timeout(5000)
                    .get();
            
            String content = robotsTxt.text();
            if (content.contains("Disallow: /")) {
                logger.warning("robots.txt contains restrictions for: " + domain);
                // Implement your logic to respect robots.txt
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            logger.info("Could not fetch robots.txt for: " + domain);
        }
    }
}

Enterprise Web Scraping Solutions

While building your own scrapers is educational and works for small projects, enterprise applications often benefit from dedicated web scraping services that handle the complexity for you.

Approach	Setup Time	Maintenance	Scalability	Success Rate	Best For
DIY Java Scraping	Days to Weeks	High	Limited	60-80%	Learning, small projects
Prompt Fuel API	Minutes	None	Unlimited	99.9%	Production applications
Proxy + DIY	Weeks	Very High	Medium	85-95%	Custom requirements

Java Integration with Web Scraping APIs

For production applications, consider using a web scraping API. Here's how to integrate with Prompt Fuel:

PromptFuelIntegration.java

import java.net.http.HttpClient;
import java.net.http.HttpRequest;
import java.net.http.HttpResponse;
import java.net.URI;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode;

public class PromptFuelIntegration {
    
    private static final String API_KEY = "your-api-key-here";
    private static final String BASE_URL = "https://api.promptfuel.io/scrape";
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        PromptFuelIntegration scraper = new PromptFuelIntegration();
        
        try {
            String result = scraper.scrapeWithAPI("https://quotes.toscrape.com/");
            System.out.println("Scraped content length: " + result.length());
            
            // Parse with JSoup for familiar API
            Document doc = Jsoup.parse(result);
            System.out.println("Page title: " + doc.title());
            
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
    
    public String scrapeWithAPI(String url) throws Exception {
        HttpClient client = HttpClient.newHttpClient();
        
        // Build request body
        String requestBody = String.format("""
            {
                "url": "%s",
                "render": true,
                "format": "html",
                "premium_proxy": true
            }
            """, url);
        
        HttpRequest request = HttpRequest.newBuilder()
                .uri(URI.create(BASE_URL))
                .header("Authorization", "Bearer " + API_KEY)
                .header("Content-Type", "application/json")
                .POST(HttpRequest.BodyPublishers.ofString(requestBody))
                .build();
        
        HttpResponse<String> response = client.send(request, 
            HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofString());
        
        if (response.statusCode() == 200) {
            // Parse JSON response
            ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
            JsonNode jsonResponse = mapper.readTree(response.body());
            
            return jsonResponse.get("html").asText();
        } else {
            throw new RuntimeException("API request failed: " + response.statusCode());
        }
    }
}

Why Choose API Over DIY?

99.9% success rate vs 60-80% with DIY solutions
Built-in proxy rotation - no IP blocking issues
JavaScript rendering - handles SPAs automatically
CAPTCHA solving - bypass anti-bot measures
Zero maintenance - focus on your business logic
Scalable - handle millions of requests

Getting Started with Java Web Scraping

You now have a complete toolkit for Java web scraping in 2025. Here's how to choose the right approach:

For Learning & Small Projects

Start with JSoup for static content, then graduate to HtmlUnit for JavaScript-heavy sites. This gives you a solid foundation in web scraping concepts.

For Production Applications

Consider web scraping APIs like Prompt Fuel that handle the complexity, provide better success rates, and let you focus on business logic instead of infrastructure.

Next Steps

Choose your library: JSoup for static, HtmlUnit for dynamic, Selenium for complex
Build a simple scraper: Start with the examples in this guide
Add error handling: Implement retries, logging, and graceful failures
Scale responsibly: Add delays, respect robots.txt, monitor performance
Consider APIs: For production apps, evaluate if a service makes more sense

Remember: the best scraper is one that works reliably in production with minimal maintenance. Choose your approach based on your specific needs, timeline, and resources.

Java Web Scraping Tutorial: Complete Guide for 2025

Table of Contents

Java Web Scraping Libraries Compared

JSoup BEST FOR STATIC

HtmlUnit BEST FOR JS

Selenium WebDriver

Prerequisites & Setup

What You'll Need

Create a New Maven Project

Maven Dependencies & Resources

JSoup: Static Content Scraping

Basic JSoup Connection and Parsing

Advanced JSoup: Data Extraction and Cleaning

HtmlUnit: JavaScript-Enabled Scraping

When to Use HtmlUnit

Basic HtmlUnit Setup

Advanced HtmlUnit: Forms and Interactions

Selenium: Full Browser Automation

Selenium Setup with Chrome

Advanced Selenium: Handling Dynamic Content

Best Practices & Error Handling

Respect & Ethics

Error Handling

Performance

Production-Ready Scraper Template

Enterprise Web Scraping Solutions

Java Integration with Web Scraping APIs

Why Choose API Over DIY?

Getting Started with Java Web Scraping

For Learning & Small Projects

For Production Applications

Next Steps

Tired of Managing Java Web Scrapers?

Table of Contents

Java Web Scraping Libraries Compared

JSoup BEST FOR STATIC

HtmlUnit BEST FOR JS

Selenium WebDriver

Prerequisites & Setup

What You'll Need

Create a New Maven Project

Maven Dependencies & Resources

JSoup: Static Content Scraping

Basic JSoup Connection and Parsing

Advanced JSoup: Data Extraction and Cleaning

HtmlUnit: JavaScript-Enabled Scraping

When to Use HtmlUnit

Basic HtmlUnit Setup

Advanced HtmlUnit: Forms and Interactions

Selenium: Full Browser Automation

Selenium Setup with Chrome

Advanced Selenium: Handling Dynamic Content

Best Practices & Error Handling

Respect & Ethics

Error Handling

Performance

Production-Ready Scraper Template

Enterprise Web Scraping Solutions

Java Integration with Web Scraping APIs

Why Choose API Over DIY?

Getting Started with Java Web Scraping

For Learning & Small Projects

For Production Applications

Next Steps

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Tired of Managing Java Web Scrapers?