In this comparison guide, you will see:
- What a C# HTML parser is and what use cases it supports
- What to consider when comparing the best HTML parsers in C#
- What the best C# HTML parsing libraries are
Let’s dive in!
What Is a C# HTML Parser?
A C# HTML parser is a library that provides the ability to parse HTML documents and often XML content as well. Essentially, these packages parse HTML code and convert it into a C# representation of the DOM (Document Object Model).
Typically, HTML parsers in C# accept local files, URLs, or raw HTML strings as input. Then, they analyze the HTML code, identifying elements such as tags, attributes, and text nodes. During the parsing process, they build a tree structure that represents the hierarchy of the given HTML document.
More advanced tools also provide methods for extracting data from HTML nodes. This opens the door to web scraping in .NET. If you are unfamiliar with this concept, explore our complete guide to web scraping.
C# HTML parsers generally come with a node selection API based on CSS selectors and/or XPath expressions. In some cases, they also provide simpler custom methods for selecting specific elements in the DOM.
Read our article to find out the list of the best HTML parsers.
Aspects to Keep in Mind When Evaluating the Best C# HTML Parsers
Here is the list of the most important elements to consider when comparing C# parsing libraries:
- Features: The functionality provided by the parser.
- Pros: The main benefits introduced by the library.
- Cons: The major drawbacks the parser has.
- GitHub stars: The number of stars the repository associated with the library has on GitHub.
- Average daily downloads: The average number of daily downloads for the package according to the NuGet registry.
- Latest release: The release date of the latest version of the library (as of this writing).
Let’s now apply these criteria to evaluate the best C# HTML parser libraries in the IT world!
Top 5 HTML Parsers in C#
Time to discover the best C# HTML parsing libraries.
1. AngleSharp
AngleSharp is .NET library that can parse angle bracket-based hyper-texts like HTML, SVG, and MathML. The package also supports XML parsing, but without validation. AngleSharp can also parse CSS.
Compared to Html Agility Pack, this C# HTML parser is built upon the official W3C specification. That means it produces a perfectly portable HTML5 DOM representation that ensures full compatibility with results in popular browsers.
The library also features standard JavaScript methods for tree traversal, such as querySelector() or querySelectorAll(). The idea behind the project is to provide the ability to do everything with the DOM in C# that you can do in JavaScript.
Take a look at the official documentation for more information.
⚙️ Features:
- CSS selector engine for finding nodes in the DOM
- Built-in HTTP client
- Complete support of LINQ queries for DOM exploration
- HTML, CSS, SVG, and MathML parsing capabilities
- Simple JavaScript execution engine
- HTML error correction functionality
👍 Pros:
- Based on the W3C specifications
- Cross-platform nature that makes it work on .NET, Unity, Xamarin, and more
- Great performance
- Follows the HTML 5.1 and CSS3 specifications
- Large and complete documentation
- Extensible via extensions
👎 Cons:
- Requires an additional extension for XPath support
⭐ GitHub stars: 5k
📈 Average daily downloads: ~25k
📅 Latest release: March 7, 2024
2. Html Agility Pack
Html Agility Pack, also known as HAP, is an agile HTML parser to read and write the DOM in C#. By default, it supports plain XPath or XSLT. CSS selectors are available via the HtmlAgilityPack.CssSelector or Fizzler extension.
The parser is very tolerant of malformed HTML. This makes it great for dealing with real pages from the web, which may not follow standards. See the parser in action in our guide on web scraping in C#.
Explore the official site for more information.
⚙️ Features:
- HTML special character decoding capabilities
- DOM manipulation API
- Built-in HTML parser
- Experimental browser parser for dynamic content pages
👍 Pros:
- Can load HTML from files, strings, or the Web (and, experimentally, from an internal browser)
- Extensible via extensions
- Can deal with malformed HTML
- Well documented
- Over 165 million downloads
👎 Cons:
- No native support for CSS selectors
- Slower than AngleSharp
⭐ GitHub stars: 2.6k
📈 Average daily downloads: ~34k
📅 Latest release: May 1, 2024
3. CsQuery
CsQuery is a complete CSS selector engine, HTML parser, and jQuery port for C#. In particular, it supports all CSS2 and CSS3 selectors, as well as all the DOM manipulation methods provided by jQuery. This way, you can use all the same jQuery methods you are familiar with to traverse and manipulate the DOM.
The C# HTML parser also offers some other utility methods, such as parseJSON() and toJSON(). Plus, it comes with an integrated and customizable HTTP client to retrieve HTML documents from the Web.
⚙️ Features:
- DOM manipulation capabilities
- CsQuery Promise API for managing asynchronous events, such as loading content from remote URLs without blocking execution
- DOM creation API
- Customizable rendering options to remove comments, ignore mismatched close tags, and more
- JSON parsing capabilities
- Built-in HTTP client
👍 Pros:
- jQuery-like syntax
- A C# port of the validator.nu HTML parser used in the Gecko browser engine
- Much faster than most other C# HTML parsing libraries
- CSS selector support
👎 Cons:
- Not actively maintained since 2013, with a couple of known bugs that have never been resolved
- No support for XPath
⭐ GitHub stars: 1.2k
📈 Average daily downloads: ~2k
📅 Latest release: June 4, 2013
4. MariGold.HtmlParser
MariGold.HtmlParser is a C# package to parse HTML documents. It allows you to traverse a document by parsing each element one by one, or to parse it entirely at once. In the latter case, the library will recursively parse all the child elements for you.
By default, MariGold.HtmlParser parses HTML but not the CSS inside <style> tags or from external style sheets. At the same time, it provides a method to parse any inline or external CSS styles in the document.
⚙️ Features:
- Search for nodes by tag name via the
FindFirst()method - Complete API for traversing the DOM starting from the current node
- HTML and CSS update capabilities
👍 Pros:
- Can parse both HTML and CSS of an HTML document
- Can resolve relative URLs to external style sheets
- No external dependencies
- Extremely lightweight package (41.47 KB)
👎 Cons:
- Not very popular
- No CSS selector support
- No XPath support
⭐ GitHub stars: 5
📈 Average daily downloads: 124
📅 Latest release: June 18, 2023
5. Majestic-12
Majestic-12 is an open-source, cross-platform, high-performance C# HTML parser. The library does not depend on any external dependencies, using only some core .NET packages. The documentation states that the authors use it to parse over 3 TB of HTML per day. However, the project has not received updates for over 15 years.
The NuGet package associated with the library is Majestic12HtmlParser. While it was added to the NuGet registry only on August 27, 2015, the codebase still refers to version 3.1.4 released on August 8, 2008.
⚙️ Features:
- Parse HTML by splitting it into small chunks, such as tags, text, comments, etc
- Possibility to update the raw HTML of a given node
- Tree traveling via the
ParseNext()method
👍 Pros:
- High performance
- Tested on large HTML volumes
- Configurable parsing capabilities
- Over 70% code coverage
👎 Cons:
- Last update was in 2008
- No CSS selector support
- No XPath support
⭐ GitHub stars: Not on GitHub
📈 Average daily downloads: ~1
📅 Latest release: August 8, 2008
Best C# HTML Parser: Summary Table
Compare the best C# HTML parsers at a glance with the following summary table:
| Parser | Features | GitHub Stars | Avg. Daily Downloads | Maintenance Status | Built-in HTTP Client | CSS Selector Support | XPath Support |
| AngleSharp | Many | 5k | ~25k | Currently maintained |  ✅ | ✅ | Via extension |
| Html Agility Pack | Many | 2.6k | ~34k | Currently maintained | ✅ | Via extension | ✅ |
| CsQuery | Medium | 1.2k | ~2k | No longer maintained | ✅ | ✅ |  ❌ |
| MariGold.HtmlParser | Few | 5 | 124 | Currently maintained | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Majestic-12 | Few | — | ~1 | No longer maintained | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Wonderful! You are now an expert of HTML parsers in C#!
Conclusion
In this article, you took a look at some of the best C# HTML parsing libraries. Finding the right tool for your needs depends on the unique requirements of your project. Here, you had the opportunity to explore some of the best HTML parsers in .NET environment.
Regardless of your choice, keep in mind that most sites adopt anti-bot technologies to prevent you from downloading their pages with the built-in HTTP clients. Thankfully, Bright Data has you covered!
Our rotating proxies are available in over 195 countries and work with any HTTP client to retrieve the HTML to parse. If are instead looking for a full-featured solution, Scraping Browser has a built-in HTML parser and can also bypass CAPTCHAs, IP bans, and rate limits for you. Parse any HTML document without any problems!
Start your free trial today!
