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Compare PHP and Node.js for scraping hotel details on Booking.com UAE
How would scraping hotel details from Booking.com UAE differ between PHP and Node.js? Is PHP’s cURL and DOMDocument better for parsing static content, or does Node.js with Puppeteer handle dynamic, JavaScript-rendered content more effectively? What happens when dealing with large-scale scraping tasks that require concurrency or interacting with user-input elements like date pickers or room selectors?
Below are two implementations—one in PHP and one in Node.js—for scraping hotel details, such as name, price, and rating, from a Booking.com UAE page. Which approach better handles these challenges and ensures scalability?
PHP Implementation:<?php require 'vendor/autoload.php'; use GuzzleHttp\Client; // Initialize Guzzle client $client = new Client(); $response = $client->get('https://www.booking.com/hotel-page'); $html = $response->getBody()->getContents(); // Load HTML into DOMDocument $dom = new DOMDocument; libxml_use_internal_errors(true); $dom->loadHTML($html); libxml_clear_errors(); // Initialize XPath $xpath = new DOMXPath($dom); // Scrape hotel details $hotel_name = $xpath->query('//h2[@class="hotel-name"]'); $price = $xpath->query('//div[@class="price"]'); $rating = $xpath->query('//span[@class="rating"]'); echo "Hotel Name: " . ($hotel_name->item(0)->nodeValue ?? 'Not found') . "\n"; echo "Price: " . ($price->item(0)->nodeValue ?? 'Not found') . "\n"; echo "Rating: " . ($rating->item(0)->nodeValue ?? 'Not found') . "\n"; ?>Node.js Implementation:
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer'); (async () => { const browser = await puppeteer.launch({ headless: true }); const page = await browser.newPage(); // Navigate to the Booking.com hotel page await page.goto('https://www.booking.com/hotel-page', { waitUntil: 'networkidle2' }); // Wait for the hotel details to load await page.waitForSelector('.hotel-name'); // Extract hotel details const details = await page.evaluate(() => { const name = document.querySelector('.hotel-name')?.innerText.trim() || 'Hotel name not found'; const price = document.querySelector('.price')?.innerText.trim() || 'Price not found'; const rating = document.querySelector('.rating')?.innerText.trim() || 'Rating not found'; return { name, price, rating }; }); console.log('Hotel Details:', details); await browser.close(); })(); -
4 Replies
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PHP is simple to set up and works well for parsing static HTML with its built-in DOMDocument. However, it struggles with dynamically loaded content, requiring additional tools or API integration.
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Node.js with Puppeteer is better suited for handling JavaScript-heavy pages like Booking.com. It ensures that all dynamic elements, such as prices or ratings, are fully loaded before extraction.
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When scraping at scale, Node.js offers better concurrency handling, allowing multiple pages to be scraped simultaneously. PHP, on the other hand, may require workarounds or external libraries to achieve similar scalability.
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If simplicity and ease of use are priorities, PHP is a good choice for small-scale scraping tasks. Node.js, however, excels in flexibility and performance for complex, dynamic sites like Booking.com.
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