--- title: "Best C# HTML Parser Tools of 2026 " slug: best-c-sharp-html-parsers date: 2024-05-06T13:32:46+00:00 modified: 2025-06-11T09:32:36+00:00 permalink: https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data/best-c-sharp-html-parsers type: blog --- [ Blog ](https://brightdata.com/blog "Blog") / [Web Data](https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data) [Web Data](https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data) # Best C# HTML Parser Tools of 2026 Explore the best C# HTML parsers, their features, and how to choose the right one for your projects in this comprehensive guide. 8 min read [ ](https://brightdata.com/blog/authors/antonello-zanini) [Antonello Zanini Technical Writer ](https://brightdata.com/blog/authors/antonello-zanini) ![Best C# HTML Parser Tools blog image](https://media.brightdata.com/2024/05/Best-C-HTML-Parser-Tools.svg) 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](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document_Object_Model)[ Object Model](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/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](/blog/how-tos/what-is-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](/blog/web-data/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](https://www.nuget.org/). - **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](https://github.com/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()`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document/querySelector) or [`querySelectorAll()`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document/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](https://anglesharp.github.io/) for more information.**Features**: - CSS selector engine for finding nodes in the DOM - Built-in HTTP client - Complete support of [LINQ queries](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/linq/get-started/introduction-to-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](https://github.com/zzzprojects/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`](https://github.com/hcesar/HtmlAgilityPack.CssSelector) or [`Fizzler`](https://github.com/atifaziz/Hazz) 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#](/blog/how-tos/web-scraping-with-c-sharp). Explore the [official site](https://html-agility-pack.net/) for more information. **Features**: - HTML special character decoding capabilities - DOM manipulation API - Built-in HTML parser - Experimental browser parser for [dynamic content pages](/blog/how-tos/scrape-dynamic-websites-python) **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](https://github.com/AngleSharp/AngleSharp/blob/devel/docs/general/04-Performance.md) **GitHub stars**: 2.6k **Average daily downloads**: ~34k **Latest release**: May 1, 2024 **3.** **CsQuery** [CsQuery](https://github.com/jamietre/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](https://api.jquery.com/category/manipulation/). 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](https://about.validator.nu/htmlparser/) 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](https://github.com/kannan-ar/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 `