Comparing Two Programming Languages For Scraping: Go Vs Java

Web scraping brings many benefits to modern businesses, including (and maybe most importantly) higher profits. Gathering and analyzing large amounts of data to predict demand, market trends, and other factors has become critical to success in a highly competitive business landscape. But, as with any other method, web scraping is beneficial only when performed correctly and efficiently.

To get web scraping right, you first and foremost need an effective web scraper. Your web scraping program should be able to crawl data and gather and parse content swiftly and accurately. In other words, you must build one such tool carefully to ensure it can scrap the web according to your needs.

Fortunately, you can rely on many programming languages for building web scraping programs. But as it often happens, some are better than others.

To help you decide on the best programming language for web scraping, we compare two popular options in this article: Go vs. Java. The former is a relatively new but easy-to-use language suitable for various applications. The latter is widely used and highly reliable. Which one will be best for you will depend on several important factors, as you’ll see below.

What Is Java?

Java is a multi-platform object-oriented programming language developed in 1991 by Sun Microsystems. Software developers and enterprises have been using it for decades to program games, websites, mobile apps, and other applications and software. And the programming language remains the top choice to date, scoring high on the list of the top programming languages for 2023.

How does Java work?

When you develop and run a Java program, your computer will first attempt to compile and interpret the code. The Java Compiler converts Java code into byte code first. The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) then converts the byte code into a usable program you can run on your local hardware.

Java programs can run on various systems and devices, such as desktop computers, mobile devices, and web browsers. You don’t need to create a separate program to run Java on Windows, Mac, or web browsers.

To run or debug a Java program on your computer, you will need the Java Development Kit (JDK) and the JVM installed, as well as an integrated development environment (IDE) such as Visual Studio Code, Eclipse, or IntelliJ IDEA.

If you go for the Visual Studio Code, you also need the Java extension installed in Visual Studio Code. Once you install the JDK, JVM, and Java extension pack, you can run a program such as a web scraper by pressing F5 or using the command in the terminal.

What Is Go?

Go is a relatively new programming language. Google introduced it in 2009 as an open-source language for frameworks, web development, cloud computing, and other types of software.

Many well-known enterprises, such as Netflix, Microsoft, and Meta, use Go. Its open-source nature attracts communities of developers as it makes sharing knowledge, teaching the language, and collaborating on projects easy.

How does Go work?

Go is easy to learn, secure, and scalable. It has a robust standard library and built-in concurrency. The syntax of Go is also easy to read, especially compared to a language such as C.

To run a Go language program in a command prompt, you need to use the Go interpreter. Once you install the Go environment on your computer, you can run the program by changing to the directory where you saved the program and typing the following in the command line:

go run hello.go

Be sure to replace “hello.go” with the name of your Go program, though.

Alternatively, you can use an IDE such as Visual Studio Code and install the Go extension from the “extensions” tab.

Your program may need a module file called “go.mod” to be able to run. Go to a command prompt, change to the directory of your hello.go file, and run the following command to generate a go.mod file in that directory:

go mod init hello

Go Vs Java Benchmarks

There are many reasons to use both Java and Go for web scraping and various other applications. But how do you know which one is best for your needs? The following comparison of Go vs. Java can help you make an informed decision.

Go vs Java performance comparison

Go is a compiled language. That means you can run Go programs directly as machine code, which is something computers understand inherently. Java, on the other hand, is first compiled as byte code. The JVM then interprets the byte code as machine code. Because of this extra step, Java compiles programs slower than Go.

As far as Go vs. Java program execution speed comparisons go, the JVM and its “just-in-time” compiler can make Java programs run very fast. However, Go’s statically compiled binaries can also run very fast and may make small Go programs run faster than Java programs.

Speed and memory performance tests show that the speed of each language may depend on the specific task.

Go vs Java concurrency abilities

Both languages use concurrency or the ability to multitask. Java uses what we call threads, while Go uses what we know as Goroutines.

Goroutines can use concurrency as a built-in part of the Go language. They can make parallel parts of Go programs run efficiently and quickly as they use little memory and run by the Go runtime rather than the computer’s operating system.

Developers can also use concurrency in Java programs but must rely on the Java Concurrency application programming interface (API). When comparing Go vs. Java as far as concurrency goes, the Java Concurrency API may not be as easy to use and lightweight as Go’s built-in concurrency support. Threads are heavyweight (use more memory) and run by the computer’s central processing unit (CPU).

Go vs Java memory usage

It’s time to compare Go vs. Java in terms of memory usage. Both programming languages use garbage collection to handle memory. Garbage collectors free up unused memory after you run a program. They also reallocate reserved memory when the program doesn’t need it anymore.

Garbage collection is automatic in Java programs. Developers do not have to worry as much about memory leaks and memory overflow because of this. But it’s worth noting that JVM uses a lot of memory compared to Go programs.

Golang’s garbage collection was slow until recent changes and optimizations eliminated garbage collection pauses when running Go programs. That is, earlier versions of the Go garbage collection function paused programs while garbage collection happened. More efficient algorithms make memory collection more efficient with Go.

Go vs Java use cases

As mentioned, both programming languages are suitable for various applications. But as they still differ in several areas and features, Go and Java have different use cases. The following examples best illustrate this:

Go 

In the Go vs. Java battle, the former proves better for:

• Beginners to make small programs swiftly and effortlessly
• Backend usage, due to its robust standard library with web servers and HTTP request handling
• Cloud infrastructure, embedded systems, and command-line interfaces due to its comprehensive standard library

Java

When deciding between Go vs. Java, the latter may be a better option for the following use cases:

• Larger and more complex programs due to its more extensive set of available libraries
• Cross-platform development as the JVM compiles the code the same way for each platform
• Enterprise web apps due to Java’s extensive frameworks
• Financial service applications, as Java’s just-in-time compiler can handle large volumes of financial transactions

Java is also a more widely used language and offers better community support for newer programmers who seek collaboration. However, deciding between Java vs. Go for web scraping is challenging, as both languages are suitable for this application. Going for one or another will mostly depend on your skills, needs, and preferences.

Go Vs Java for Web Scraping

Web scraping refers to the collection and storage of data from public websites using automated tools. There are numerous benefits to programming these tools and using them as automated software. These include scraping massive data sets from many different pages swiftly and effortlessly.

Manually gathering and compiling massive amounts of data is typically time-consuming and costly. Web scraping makes this process quick and easy.

You can program software to scrape the web in many different programming languages, such as Python, C++, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Java, and Go.

Let’s see how the following two languages perform this task: Go vs. Java.

How to scrape the web in Java

You can start scraping the web with Java once you install the required JDK, JVM, and Java extensions. But first, determine the following:

• The type of information you want to scrape
• Website URLs you want to scrape
• The HTML structure of the site
• CSS identifiers, such as classes or IDs of the items you want to scrape

You may also want to program ways of interacting with the website, such as automatically clicking the “Next page” buttons or filling in search fields. For example, your program can automatically continue to click on the “Next Page” button to continue scraping the contents of as many subsequent pages as you would like.

Java web scraper example

Let’s better contrast Go vs. Java by exploring how Java web scraper would work on a hypothetical example. For instance, you can program a simple web scraper to scrape the headlines of a news site and save the headlines in a spreadsheet on your local machine.

To scrape the web and save the information to your computer in a spreadsheet, you must import several libraries, including Jsoup and Apache POI. Be sure to download the files for Jsoup, including the core library.

The following program sends a request to a news site, extracts the headlines from the HTML content, and then saves the headlines to a spreadsheet.

Read the comments starting with “//” as they explain each section of the code.

import org.jsoup.Jsoup;

import org.jsoup.nodes.Document;

import org.jsoup.nodes.Element;

import org.jsoup.select.Elements;

import java.io.BufferedWriter;

import java.io.IOException;

import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;

import java.nio.file.Files;

import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class Scraper {

public static void main(String[] args) {

String csvPath = “c:/path/to/headlines.csv”; // Modify this to your desired path

try {

// Connect to the website and fetch the HTML content

Document document = Jsoup.connect(“https://lite.cnn.com”).get();

// Check and print the charset of the fetched document

System.out.println(“Charset: ” + document.charset());

// Find all elements with class ‘card–lite’, which are the headlines on the page

Elements headlines = document.select(“.card–lite a”);

// Create a BufferedWriter to save the scraped headlines as CSV in UTF-8

BufferedWriter writer = Files.newBufferedWriter(Paths.get(csvPath), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);

// Loop through each headline and save the headlines to the CSV file

for (Element headline : headlines) {

writer.append(headline.text());

writer.append(‘\n’); // Go to the next line after each headline

}

// Close the BufferedWriter

writer.flush();

writer.close();

// Print to the terminal when the scraping and saving is complete

System.out.println(“Done scraping”);

} catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

}

}

To run this program, make sure to have the Java extensions installed on Visual Studio Code and a terminal open in Visual Studio Code. Run this command to compile the Java program:

javac -cp “.;jsoup-1.16.1.jar” Scraper.java

Then you can run the program from the terminal:

java -cp “.;jsoup-1.16.1.jar” Scraper

This program is a basic Java web scraper that scrapes the headlines of a news site. Keep in mind that your program will likely be more complex. The site you may want to scrape will probably also have a different HTML layout with diverse CSS identifiers. You need to know which CSS class IDs are labeled inside the HTML elements of the items you want to scrape.

How to scrape the web in Go

Scraping the web is easy with Golang. Start by installing the required libraries for web scraping and data saving. The example we provided below uses the Colly web scraping library.

You will need to run a few commands to download the library necessary to scrape the web with this program. Open a terminal, such as the one in Visual Studio Code. Then, run these commands in the terminal to get the libraries:

go get -u github.com/gocolly/colly/v2

Now, you can write a Golang program that scrapes the news site and saves the headlines to a CSV file. Save this program as something like “scraper.go”.

Go web scraper example

Your program may look something like the following example. Read the comments that start with “//” that explain each section of the code.

//Golang web scraper for Go vs Java article

package main

import (

“encoding/csv”

“fmt”

“log”

“os”

“github.com/gocolly/colly/v2”

)

func main() {

// Create a new collector

c := colly.NewCollector()

// Create a new CSV file

file, err := os.Create(“headlines.csv”)

if err != nil {

log.Fatalf(“Failed creating file: %s”, err)

}

defer file.Close()

writer := csv.NewWriter(file)

defer writer.Flush()

// On every “.card–lite” element found, get its child ‘a’ text and save it to CSV

c.OnHTML(“.card–lite”, func(e *colly.HTMLElement) {

headline := e.ChildText(“a”)

err := writer.Write([]string{headline})

if err != nil {

log.Fatalf(“Cannot write to file: %s”, err)

}

})

// Visit the website

err = c.Visit(“https://lite.cnn.com”)

if err != nil {

log.Fatal(err)

}

fmt.Println(“Scraping done.”)

}

To run this program, you can use the following command in the terminal of Visual Studio Code:

Go run scraper.go

Be sure to change the file name in the command above to whatever you named your file initially. For example, if you named the file “webscraper.go,” your command would be:

Go run webscraper.go

The result should be a CSV file with all the headlines of the day, which you can open in a spreadsheet program like Excel.

If writing a web scraper seems too complex and demanding, you can rely on Scraping Robot to get the job done. At Scraping Robot, we handle all the demanding tasks involved with web scraping, from proxy management to browser scalability, so you can focus on other business-critical areas. Forget choosing between Go vs. Java and leave everything to Scraping Robot.

Proxies for anonymous web scraping

Regardless of what programming language you use for web scraping, always scrape only sites that allow it. Scraping without permission (or doing so excessively in a short duration) can land you a ban on your internet protocol (IP) address.

Ensure, therefore, that you respect a site’s robots.text or terms of service. Proxies can also help you get around this issue.

Proxies are intermediary servers that retrieve data on behalf of users. They essentially act as getaways between users and the internet, providing security and privacy when browsing the internet. When running a web scraping program with a proxy, you allow the proxy server to hide your IP address by rotating its various IP addresses. This way, you can perform web scraping without running at risk of the webpages blocking or banning your IP address.

Find out more about using a proxy in this Rayobyte article. You can also rely on Scraping Robot to handle proxy management and rotation. Instead of wasting time and resources building a web scraper with proxies from scratch, you can partner with Scraping Robot to take over all the headaches that come with web scraping.

Proxies with Java

If you still want to run your own web scraper program with a proxy, you can do so with both Java and Go. To use a proxy in the Java code, you first have to use the System properties to set your username, password, port, and IP address. Then, include an authentication code.

Append this proxy code before your Main class:

System.setProperty(“http.proxyHost”, “YOUR_PROXY_HOST”);

System.setProperty(“http.proxyPort”, “YOUR_PROXY_PORT”);

System.setProperty(“http.proxyUser”, “YOUR_USERNAME”);

System.setProperty(“http.proxyPassword”, “YOUR_PASSWORD”);

// For HTTPS:

System.setProperty(“https.proxyHost”, “YOUR_PROXY_HOST”);

System.setProperty(“https.proxyPort”, “YOUR_PROXY_PORT”);

System.setProperty(“https.proxyUser”, “YOUR_USERNAME”);

System.setProperty(“https.proxyPassword”, “YOUR_PASSWORD”);

Authenticator.setDefault(

new Authenticator() {

@Override

protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {

if (getRequestorType() == RequestorType.PROXY) {

return new PasswordAuthentication(“YOUR_USERNAME”, “YOUR_PASSWORD”.toCharArray());

}

return null;

}

}

);

Proxies with Golang

Things are a little simpler for setting a web scraper program with a proxy in Go. If you are using the Colly web scraping library with your Go program, you can set up a proxy right in your main function in your Go program:

// Set up your proxy

rp, err := proxy.RoundRobinProxySwitcher(

//Be sure to put your proxy information here

“http://your_proxy_address:your_proxy_port”,

“https://another_proxy_address:another_proxy_port”,

// add more proxies if needed

)

if err != nil {

log.Fatal(err)

}

c.SetProxyFunc(rp)

Additional resources for Go vs Java

As mentioned, writing code with Go and Java may require more work than shown in our hypothetical examples above. Your needs and programs will likely be more complex and demand adjusting the code accordingly. Fortunately, you can rely on several resources to better inform yourself about building a web scraper program with either language.

We wrote the code for hypothetical examples in this article using open-source resources for both Java and Go. The Java library Jsoup is open source and available under the MIT license. Find out more information on the Jsoup GitHub page.

Similarly, we sourced the Golang code from the Colly framework, which is also a community-driven open-source library. Find more information on Colly and the Colly source code on the Colly GitHub repository.

Final Thoughts

Web scraping can be a valuable and lucrative way to gather large amounts of data from public online sources. You can leverage it by hiring a developer to make a web-scraping program or do it yourself with Go or Java, as shown above.

When it comes to the Go vs. Java debate, there are many reasons to choose either language. Developers have been using Java for quite a while now, which makes the language trustworthy. But despite being a relatively new language, Go is also reliable and attractive, especially because of its speed and ease of use.

Alternatively, you can use a service such as Scraping Robot to save time, effort, and money on web scraping. Scraping Robot has long experience in web scraping and a premier capacity and infrastructure to support your needs. We professionally (and securely) gather and organize information from the internet to help you use it effortlessly and efficiently.

If you have any additional questions on Go vs. Java capabilities, web scraping, or using proxies to scrape the web securely and anonymously, contact us at Rayobyte, your source for web scraping proxies, or visit our knowledge base for more information.

If you want a ready-made web scraping solution, visit Scraping Robot to get started.

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