The General Verdict
Use Puppeteer if: You are an experienced Node.js developer, have servers with plenty of spare RAM, love configuring Dockerfiles, and don't mind manually maintaining proxies and captchas.
Use Huarp if: You want to drag and drop nodes in n8n, focus on business logic, need ready-to-use infrastructure, and want to scale without worrying about infrastructure.
| Feature | Puppeteer (Self-Hosted) | Huarp (Managed) |
|---|---|---|
| Initial Cost | Free (Open Source) | Paid (with Free plan) |
| Maintenance Cost | Very High (DevOps) | Zero |
| n8n Integration | Via Code Node (Complex) | Native Node or HTTP |
| RAM Consumption | ~1GB per tab | Zero on your server |
| Human Simulation | Requires complex coding | Automatic |
The invisible cost of Puppeteer
Many start with Puppeteer because it's "free". But when you calculate the engineering team's time to fix bugs, update Chrome versions that break compatibility, and manage beefy servers, the real cost is much higher than a monthly subscription.
Huarp's Philosophy
Huarp doesn't want to replace Puppeteer (we use it internally!). We want to replace your headache of managing it. We package best practices into a simple API.