HTTParty is a popular Ruby gem for making HTTP requests, which can be used for web scraping tasks. However, if you are looking for alternatives specifically tailored for web scraping or with different features, here are several options you can consider:
1. Nokogiri
Nokogiri is a potent HTML, XML, SAX, and Reader parser with the ability to search documents via XPath or CSS3 selectors. It's not an HTTP client itself, but it's often used in combination with HTTP clients like Net::HTTP, Open-URI, or HTTParty for web scraping.
require 'nokogiri'
require 'open-uri'
url = 'http://example.com'
document = Nokogiri::HTML(URI.open(url))
2. Mechanize
Mechanize is a library that automates web interaction, providing a high-level mechanism to simulate a browser. It's capable of handling cookies, forms, redirections, and more, making it a handy tool for scraping websites that require session persistence or form submissions.
require 'mechanize'
agent = Mechanize.new
page = agent.get('http://example.com')
3. RestClient
RestClient is a simple HTTP and REST client for Ruby, inspired by the Sinatra microframework style of specifying actions: get, put, post, delete.
require 'rest-client'
response = RestClient.get 'http://example.com/resource'
puts response.body
4. Faraday
Faraday is an HTTP client library that provides a common interface over many adapters (such as Net::HTTP) and embraces the concept of Rack middleware when processing the request/response cycle.
require 'faraday'
conn = Faraday.new(url: 'http://example.com')
response = conn.get '/resource'
puts response.body
5. Typhoeus
Typhoeus is a library for making parallel HTTP requests, based on libcurl. It's particularly useful when you need to make multiple HTTP requests to various endpoints simultaneously.
require 'typhoeus'
request = Typhoeus::Request.new('http://example.com')
response = request.run
puts response.body
6. HTTP
The http gem (also known as http.rb) is a simple and fast Ruby HTTP client with a chainable API, streaming support, and timeouts. It's designed to be easy to use and understand.
require 'http'
response = HTTP.get('http://example.com/resource')
puts response.to_s
7. Patron
Patron is a Ruby HTTP client library based on libcurl, which is a very stable and reliable library for making HTTP calls in various programming languages. Patron provides a more Ruby-like API on top of libcurl.
require 'patron'
sess = Patron::Session.new
sess.base_url = "http://example.com"
response = sess.get("/resource")
puts response.body
When choosing an alternative to HTTParty, consider the specific needs of your scraping project such as support for JavaScript-heavy websites, handling cookies and sessions, concurrency requirements, and the complexity of the data extraction. For JavaScript-heavy sites, you might need a headless browser like Puppeteer (though it is a Node.js library) or Ruby bindings for Selenium WebDriver.
