Ferrum
The facts below are what the maker publishes about Ferrum, checked and dated. Our editors have not written about it yet.
The facts
Each one read from Ferrum's own pages, with the date it was checked.
Where it runs
- Browser automation
- Ferrum supports page navigation, CSS and XPath element finding, and mouse and keyboard input.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Browser modes
- Ferrum runs headless by default and can be configured to run with a visible browser window.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Browser protocol
- Ferrum connects to Chrome through the Chrome DevTools Protocol and does not depend on Selenium, WebDriver, or ChromeDriver.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Linux browser setup
- The documentation advises downloading Chrome or Chromium from its official source because it says there is no official Chrome or Chromium package for Linux.checked 5 Oct 2026
What it does
- Features
- The project website lists navigation and finders, screenshots, mouse and keyboard control, network, cookies, headers, JavaScript, frames, and dialogs.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- Cuprite is a Capybara driver built on Ferrum, and Vessel is a web crawling framework based on Ferrum and Mechanize.checked 11 Oct 2026
- JavaScript
- The documentation provides methods to evaluate JavaScript expressions and execute JavaScript in a page.checked 5 Oct 2026
- License
- Ferrum is available as open-source software under the MIT License.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Page capture
- Its capture methods can save or return screenshots, PDFs, and MHTML.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Protocol
- It connects to Chrome through the Chrome DevTools Protocol without a Selenium, WebDriver, or ChromeDriver dependency.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Proxy support
- Ferrum accepts proxy settings for a browser or for pages created in separate contexts.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- Ferrum provides a high-level Ruby API to control Chrome and automate browser tasks.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Requirements
- Ferrum requires Ruby and Chrome or Chromium; the browser binary must be available on PATH or specified with BROWSER_PATH.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Ruby version
- The published gem requires Ruby version 3.1 or later.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Support
- The project welcomes bug reports and pull requests on GitHub.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Thread safety
- The project website says Ferrum was designed to be thread safe and that each page can be maintained independently through a dedicated websocket.checked 11 Oct 2026
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