by dennisgl
Leverage advanced web scraping in Node.js using Playwright and BeautifulSoup for robust JavaScript web scraping and cont
Scrapes web content from JavaScript-heavy sites using Playwright browser automation and converts it to clean Markdown format.
Playwright Scraper is a community-built MCP server published by dennisgl that provides AI assistants with tools and capabilities via the Model Context Protocol. Leverage advanced web scraping in Node.js using Playwright and BeautifulSoup for robust JavaScript web scraping and cont It is categorized under search web. This server exposes 1 tool that AI clients can invoke during conversations and coding sessions.
You can install Playwright Scraper in your AI client of choice. Use the install panel on this page to get one-click setup for Cursor, Claude Desktop, VS Code, and other MCP-compatible clients. This server runs locally on your machine via the stdio transport.
Apache-2.0
Playwright Scraper is released under the Apache-2.0 license. This is a permissive open-source license, meaning you can freely use, modify, and distribute the software.
Fetch and extract information from websites automatically
Example
Research competitor pricing, scrape product reviews, monitor news mentions
Automate 5-10 hours/week of manual web research
Track website changes, new content, price updates
Example
Monitor competitor blog for new posts, track stock availability, watch for pricing changes
Stay informed without manual checking, never miss important updates
Extract structured data from multiple websites
Example
Compile product listings from 10 e-commerce sites, aggregate job postings, collect real estate data
Build datasets 100x faster than manual copying
Share your MCP server with the developer community
We evaluated Playwright Scraper against two servers with overlapping tools; this profile had the clearer scope statement.
Playwright Scraper has been reliable for tool-calling workflows; the MCP profile page is a good permalink for internal docs.
I recommend Playwright Scraper for teams standardizing on MCP; the explainx.ai page compares cleanly with sibling servers.
According to our notes, Playwright Scraper benefits from clear Model Context Protocol framing — fewer ambiguous “AI plugin” claims.
Strong directory entry: Playwright Scraper surfaces stars and publisher context so we could sanity-check maintenance before adopting.
Playwright Scraper reduced integration guesswork — categories and install configs on the listing matched the upstream repo.
We wired Playwright Scraper into a staging workspace; the listing’s GitHub and npm pointers saved time versus hunting across READMEs.
Strong directory entry: Playwright Scraper surfaces stars and publisher context so we could sanity-check maintenance before adopting.
Useful MCP listing: Playwright Scraper is the kind of server we cite when onboarding engineers to host + tool permissions.
We wired Playwright Scraper into a staging workspace; the listing’s GitHub and npm pointers saved time versus hunting across READMEs.
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A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that scrapes web content and converts it to Markdown.
This MCP server provides a simple tool for scraping web content and converting it to Markdown format. It uses:
The server implements a single tool:
scrape_to_markdown: Scrapes content from a URL and converts it to Markdown
url (string) - The URL to scrapeverify_ssl (boolean) - Whether to verify SSL certificates (default: true)When using uv no specific installation is needed. We will
use uvx to directly run mcp-playwright-scraper.
Alternatively you can install mcp-playwright-scraper via pip:
pip install mcp-playwright-scraper
After installation, you can run it as a script using:
python -m mcp_playwright_scraper
After installation, you need to install Playwright browser dependencies:
playwright install --with-deps chromium
Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:
"mcpServers": {
"mcp-playwright-scraper": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["mcp-playwright-scraper"]
}
}
"mcpServers": {
"mcp-playwright-scraper": {
"command": "python",
"args": ["-m", "mcp_playwright_scraper"]
}
}
# Basic syntax
$ claude mcp add mcp-playwright-scraper -- uvx mcp-playwright-scraper
# Alternatively, with pip installation
$ claude mcp add mcp-playwright-scraper -- python -m mcp_playwright_scraper
"mcpServers": {
"mcp-playwright-scraper": {
"command": "uv",
"args": [
"--directory",
"/path/to/mcp-playwright-scraper",
"run",
"mcp-playwright-scraper"
]
}
}
Add to your Zed settings.json:
<details> <summary>Using uvx</summary>"context_servers": [
"mcp-playwright-scraper": {
"command": {
"path": "uvx",
"args": ["mcp-playwright-scraper"]
}
}
],
"context_servers": {
"mcp-playwright-scraper": {
"command": "python",
"args": ["-m", "mcp_playwright_scraper"]
}
},
mcp-playwright-scraperstdiouvx mcp-playwright-scraper
python -m mcp_playwright_scraper
Once configured in Claude Desktop, you can explicitly use the scraper with a prompt like:
Use the mcp-playwright-scraper to scrape the content from https://example.com and summarize it.
You can use the MCP inspector to debug the server:
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx mcp-playwright-scraper
Or if you've installed the package in a specific directory or are developing on it:
cd path/to/mcp-playwright-scraper
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run mcp-playwright-scraper
Upon launching, the Inspector will display a URL that you can access in your browser to begin debugging.
To prepare the package for distribution:
uv sync
uv build
This will create source and wheel distributions in the dist/ directory.
uv publish
Note: You'll need to set PyPI credentials via environment variables or command flags:
--token or UV_PUBLISH_TOKEN--username/UV_PUBLISH_USERNAME and --password/UV_PUBLISH_PASSWORDThis MCP server is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. You are free to use, modify, and distribute the software, subject to the terms and conditions of the Apache License 2.0. For more details, please see the LICENSE file in the project repository or visit http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.
Interact with services that don't offer APIs
Example
Check form submissions, validate website functionality, test user flows
Automate interactions with any website, even without API
Prerequisites
Time Estimate
20-40 minutes including configuration and testing
Steps
Troubleshooting
✓ Do
✗ Don't
💡 Pro Tips
Architecture
MCP server handles HTTP requests, HTML parsing, JavaScript rendering (if headless browser), and returns structured data to Claude.
Protocols
Compatibility
✓ Use when
Use for research automation, content monitoring, data aggregation from multiple sources, and when official APIs don't exist. Best for read-only information gathering.
✗ Avoid when
Avoid for sites with APIs (use API instead), sites that explicitly forbid scraping, when data is copyrighted, or for login-required content without proper authorization.