8 Best PHP Web Scraping Libraries in 2025

Here, I’ll take you through eight of the best PHP web scraping libraries available today. I’ll highlight their features, the pros and cons of each, and show you how to use them so you can get the data you need with ease. Let’s dive in!

Best Web Scrapers as Alternatives to PHP Web Scraping

If you prefer ready-made web scrapers over PHP libraries, here are the top options:

1. Bright Data — Powerful, scalable web scraping solutions with automation.
2. Scrapy — Python-based, open-source framework for large-scale scraping.
3. ParseHub — No-code visual scraper for extracting structured data.
4. Octoparse — User-friendly, point-and-click web scraping tool.
5. Apify — Cloud-based platform for automated web data extraction.

These tools simplify scraping without coding in PHP.

Which Libraries Are Used for Web Scraping in PHP?

PHP offers a variety of libraries to make web scraping easier and more efficient. Here are some of the most popular and effective libraries for scraping data.

cURL

cURL is a well-known PHP library that allows developers to make HTTP requests and handle responses. It supports multiple protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP, making it highly flexible for web scraping tasks. Although it’s not designed specifically for scraping, cURL can be used effectively to fetch web pages and interact with web servers.

Pros:

• High degree of control over HTTP requests.
• Supports features like proxies, SSL/TLS encryption, authentication, and cookies.
• Excellent for dealing with a variety of HTTP methods and protocols.

Cons:

• Low-level API, which can make it challenging for beginners to use.
• Does not parse HTML, so you need to pair it with other libraries like Simple HTML DOM or Symfony’s DomCrawler.
• Lacks convenience functions such as automatic retries or error handling.

How to Use cURL for Scraping:

To scrape a page with cURL, you need to initiate a cURL session, configure it to make an HTTP request, and then retrieve the response. Here is an example that demonstrates how to use cURL for web scraping:

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://www.example.com");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
// Use a parser like Simple HTML DOM to handle the HTML response.
include("simple_html_dom.php");
$html = str_get_html($response);

While cURL does the heavy lifting of making the HTTP request, you would typically need another library to parse the HTML and extract specific elements.

Goutte

Goutte is a user-friendly PHP web scraper built on the Symfony DomCrawler component. It simplifies the process of scraping by providing an intuitive, DOM-style interface for extracting data from HTML documents. Goutte is an excellent choice for developers who want a straightforward solution for basic scraping tasks.

Pros:

• Easy to use, especially for beginners.
• Simplifies the extraction of data from HTML using CSS selectors.
• Built-in support for handling HTTP requests.
• Great for scraping static content.

Cons:

• Not suitable for scraping JavaScript-heavy websites or dynamic content.
• Limited flexibility compared to more powerful libraries like Symfony’s DomCrawler.
• Documentation can be a bit disorganized.

How to Use Goutte for Scraping:

To start using Goutte, you first need to install it via Composer. Once installed, you can make an HTTP request and use the filter() method to find elements on the page:

require 'vendor/autoload.php';
use GoutteClient;
$client = new Client();
$crawler = $client->request('GET', 'https://www.example.com/news');
// Extract titles
$titles = $crawler->filter('h2')->each(function ($node) {
return $node->text();
});
// Extract authors
$authors = $crawler->filter('span.author')->each(function ($node) {
return $node->text();
});
print_r($titles);
print_r($authors);

Guzzle

Guzzle is a powerful PHP HTTP client that can also be used for web scraping. It is more than just a scraper; Guzzle is a full-featured HTTP client with support for handling requests and responses, middleware, and error handling. It is ideal for situations where you need more control over your HTTP requests or when working with APIs.

Guzzle is also very easy to set up with proxies.

Pros:

• Intuitive interface for sending HTTP requests.
• Supports advanced features like parallel requests, error handling, and caching.
• Works well with libraries like Symfony DomCrawler to parse HTML.

Cons:

• Steeper learning curve compared to simpler libraries like Goutte.
• Can add complexity to projects due to its numerous dependencies.
• More suitable for API interactions than for general web scraping.

How to Use Guzzle for Scraping:

Once you’ve installed Guzzle via Composer, you can use it alongside Symfony’s DomCrawler to extract data from a webpage:

require 'vendor/autoload.php';
use GuzzleHttpClient;
use SymfonyComponentDomCrawlerCrawler;
$client = new Client();
$response = $client->request('GET', 'https://www.example.com');
$html = $response->getBody();
$crawler = new Crawler($html);
// Extract data
$titles = $crawler->filter('h2')->each(function ($node) {
return $node->text();
});
print_r($titles);

Guzzle is perfect for handling complex HTTP requests and combining with a parsing library like DomCrawler for data extraction.

Symfony DomCrawler

Symfony DomCrawler is a powerful PHP component designed to work with HTML and XML documents. It is commonly used in conjunction with other libraries like Guzzle or cURL to parse the content of a webpage. DomCrawler provides an elegant API for traversing the DOM, making it an ideal choice for extracting specific elements from HTML.

Pros:

• Elegant and robust API for traversing and parsing HTML documents.
• Great integration with other Symfony components.
• Works seamlessly with Guzzle or cURL for scraping dynamic pages.

Cons:

• Only useful for HTML parsing; it cannot send HTTP requests by itself.
• May require some familiarity with the Symfony ecosystem.

How to Use Symfony DomCrawler for Scraping:

Once you have Guzzle or another HTTP client in place, use DomCrawler to parse the HTML and extract data:

require 'vendor/autoload.php';
use SymfonyComponentDomCrawlerCrawler;
$html = file_get_contents('https://www.example.com');
$crawler = new Crawler($html);
// Extract titles
$titles = $crawler->filter('h2')->each(function ($node) {
return $node->text();
});
print_r($titles);

Symfony’s DomCrawler is perfect for developers who need a powerful yet straightforward way to parse HTML.

Panther

Panther is a headless browser library for PHP that allows you to scrape websites dynamically. It uses real browsers like Chrome or Firefox in headless mode, which means they run without a graphical user interface. This makes Panther an excellent choice for scraping websites that rely on JavaScript for rendering content.

Pros:

• Can scrape JavaScript-heavy websites by rendering pages like a real browser.
• Allows interaction with elements on the page, like filling forms or clicking buttons.
• Can be used to take screenshots or generate PDFs of pages.

Cons:

• More resource-intensive compared to other PHP libraries.
• May not be necessary for scraping static sites.
• Can be slow due to the need to render pages in a real browser.

How to Use Panther for Scraping:

Panther is great for scraping websites that require interaction or dynamic content. After installing the library, you can use it to launch a headless browser, load a page, and extract data:

use SymfonyComponentPantherPantherTestCase;
$client = PantherTestCase::startWebDriver();
$client->request('GET', 'https://www.example.com');
// Scrape content
$crawler = $client->getCrawler();
$titles = $crawler->filter('h2')->each(function ($node) {
return $node->text();
});
print_r($titles);

Simple HTML DOM

Simple HTML DOM is a lightweight PHP library that simplifies the process of parsing HTML documents. It provides an easy-to-use API for finding elements by their HTML tags, attributes, classes, and IDs. This library is especially useful for quick scraping tasks where you need to extract specific elements from a webpage.

Pros:

• Extremely easy to use, even for beginners.
• Simple syntax for extracting elements from HTML.
• Lightweight and does not require complex configuration.

Cons:

• Not suitable for large-scale scraping projects.
• Lacks advanced features found in other libraries like Guzzle or Panther.

How to Use Simple HTML DOM for Scraping:

Here’s how you can use Simple HTML DOM to scrape data from a webpage:

include('simple_html_dom.php');
$html = file_get_html('https://www.example.com');
// Extract titles
$titles = [];
foreach ($html->find('h2') as $element) {
$titles[] = $element->plaintext;
}
print_r($titles);

DiDOM

DiDOM is a fast and lightweight HTML parser for PHP. It provides a simple API for parsing HTML and extracting elements from a document. DiDOM is an excellent choice for smaller scraping tasks or when you need a fast, easy-to-use parser.

Pros:

• Fast and efficient.
• Simple API for extracting elements from HTML.
• Lightweight and easy to integrate.

Cons:

• Not as feature-rich as other libraries like Symfony DomCrawler.
• Limited support for complex web scraping tasks.

How to Use DiDOM for Scraping:

You can easily install DiDOM via Composer and use it to extract elements from a page:

use DiDomDocument;
$document = new Document('https://www.example.com');
$titles = $document->find('h2');
foreach ($titles as $title) {
echo $title->text() . "n";
}

QueryPath

QueryPath is another PHP library that simplifies working with HTML documents. It allows you to traverse, manipulate, and extract data from HTML using jQuery-like syntax. QueryPath is great for developers familiar with jQuery, as it offers a similar API.

Pros:

• jQuery-like syntax, making it familiar to developers with JavaScript experience.
• Powerful querying abilities for finding and manipulating HTML elements.
• Works well with both static and dynamic content.

Cons:

• Larger memory usage compared to lighter libraries.
• May require more setup for advanced tasks.

How to Use QueryPath for Scraping:

Here’s an example of how to use QueryPath for web scraping:

require 'vendor/autoload.php';
use QueryPathCSSCSSQuery;
$html = file_get_contents('https://www.example.com');
$qp = qp($html, 'h2');
foreach ($qp as $item) {
echo qp($item)->text() . "n";
}

Conclusion

Choosing the best PHP web scraping library depends on your project’s requirements. If you need a simple solution for static websites, libraries like Goutte and Simple HTML DOM may be the way to go. For more advanced needs, such as scraping dynamic JavaScript-driven pages, Panther or Guzzle combined with Symfony DomCrawler will be more suitable.

Regardless of which library you choose, it’s important to remember that web scraping should be done responsibly. Always check the website’s terms of service and respect robots.txt files to avoid any legal issues or potential IP blocking.