MHmherrmann·Dec 11, 2024Submission
Helium: Lighter Web Automation with Python
199 points · Open discussionmherrmann
helium
Python2020–2024
mherrmann / helium
helium
Lighter web automation with Python
3Distinct people
10Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
8.3KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Lighter web automation with Python
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year10 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2020-02-25 19:15:12 UTC to 2024-12-11 12:11:28 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
10 sourcesUnreasonably shameless plug for my open source Python library Helium [1], so you don't need a test generator.
1: https://github.com/mherrmann/helium
In Playwright Test GeneratorI don't get why people still use XPaths, CSS selectors or HTML IDs to identify elements, even when they are "recorded". Please please please just use my https://github.com/mherrmann/selenium-python-helium instead. It makes so much more sense.
In Show HN: Autotab – An AI-powered Chrome extension to create Selenium scriptsSelenium-Python but Lighter: Helium
1 points · Open discussionOP struggles with XPaths in complex DOMs. This is a solved problem. Use Helium [1] to write test code that acts on what the user sees:
start_chrome('github.com/login')
write('user', into='Username')
write('pw', into='Password')
click('Sign in')
I am the author of Helium. It's a wrapper around Selenium. It's fully open source. Under the hood, it uses Selenium 3, which is old. But boy does it work beautifully.
1: https://github.com/mherrmann/selenium-python-helium
In Web automation: Don't use Selenium, use PlaywrightRegarding automatic selectors: check out my open source library https://github.com/mherrmann/selenium-python-helium.
In Ask HN: Would you be interested in POM generator for Selenium?Helium is a much better, faster alternative. It offers fallback to Selenium WebDriver.
https://github.com/mherrmann/selenium-python-helium
In Playwright-test – cross-browser end-to-end test suite with PlaywrightShameless plug for my open source library Helium [1]. It extends Selenium's API and makes it easier to use. The name comes from Helium also being a chemical element, but lighter than Selenium.
1: https://github.com/mherrmann/selenium-python-helium
In How we learnt to stop worrying and love web scrapingSelenium-Python-helium: Library for web automation (Selenium-Python but lighter)
4 points · Open discussionShow HN: Helium – Lighter web automation based on Selenium
191 points · Open discussion