--- title: "How to Parse HTML With Golang?" slug: parse-html-with-golang date: 2025-01-16T12:56:06+00:00 modified: 2025-09-16T16:38:05+00:00 permalink: https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data/parse-html-with-golang type: blog --- [ Blog ](https://brightdata.com/blog "Blog") / [Web Data](https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data) [Web Data](https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data) # How to Parse HTML With Golang? Master HTML parsing in Go with Node Parser, Tokenizer, and top third-party tools like Goquery and Colly for efficient web scraping solutions. 8 min read [ ](https://brightdata.com/blog/authors/jake-nulty) [Jake Nulty Technical Writer ](https://brightdata.com/blog/authors/jake-nulty) ![How to Parse HTML With Golang blog image](https://media.brightdata.com/2025/01/How-to-Parse-HTML-With-Golang.svg) There are all sorts of great [parsing tools](/blog/web-data/best-html-parsers) out there. In Python, your [options](/blog/web-data/best-python-html-parsers) feel almost unlimited. However, with Go, we don’t really get much to choose from. Go is an excellent language for performance and memory management, but our parsing libraries are quite limited. Node Parser and Tokenizer are two options we can use from Go’s standard library. If you’re completely unfamiliar with how web scraping works, take a look at [this guide](/blog/how-tos/html-web-scraping). Follow along with us and learn when to use these tools or when to choose a third party library for a more complete scraping solution. ## Prerequisites Basic understanding of Go and Web Scraping are helpful here but not required. If you’re familiar with Go but you’d like to get to know the web scraping process take a look a [this guide](/blog/how-tos/web-scraping-go). To start, you need to make sure you have Go installed on your machine. You can find the latest release [here](https://go.dev/dl/). Download the latest release for your system and we’re off to the races! **Create a new project folder and `cd` into it.** ```none mkdir goparser cd goparser ``` **Initialize a new Go project.** ```none go mod init goparser ``` **Testing Your Configuration** Go ahead and paste the following code into a new file, `main.go`. ```none package main import "fmt" func main() { fmt.Println("Hello, World!") } ``` You can run the file with the following command. ```none go run main.go ``` If everything is working, you should receive the following output. ```none Hello, World! ``` **Install our only dependency**. ```none go get golang.org/x/net/html ``` ## Examining the Page [Quotes to Scrape](https://www.quotes.toscrape.com/) is a site built specifically for the purpose of scraping tutorials. In this tutorial, we’re going to extract each quote and its author from the page. To better understand the quote object, take a look at the screenshot below. Each quote is a `span` and its `class` is `text`. In this next screenshot, we inspect the author. It is a `small` element and its `class` is `author`. Both our Node Parser and Tokenizer examples will produce the same output you see below. ```none Quote: “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” Author: Albert Einstein Quote: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Author: J.K. Rowling Quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Author: Albert Einstein Quote: “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” Author: Jane Austen Quote: “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” Author: Marilyn Monroe Quote: “Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.” Author: Albert Einstein Quote: “It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” Author: André Gide Quote: “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Author: Thomas A. Edison Quote: “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.” Author: Eleanor Roosevelt Quote: “A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.” Author: Steve Martin ``` ## Extracting Data With Node Parser Go’s Node Parser allows us to traverse the DOM (Document Object Model) and manipulate it recursively. When we use Node Parser, it converts the entire HTML page into a tree-like structure of `Node` objects that we can parse as we go. In the code below, we create a recursive function: `processNode()`. It takes a pointer to an HTML node. If the node is a `span` and its `class` is `text`, we print the quote to the console. If the node is a `small` element and its `class` is `author`, we print the author to the console. These are the same attributes we discovered earlier when inspecting the page. ```none package main import ( "fmt" "net/http" "golang.org/x/net/html" ) func main() { resp, _ := http.Get("http://quotes.toscrape.com") defer resp.Body.Close() doc, _ := html.Parse(resp.Body) var processNode func(*html.Node) processNode = func(n *html.Node) { if n.Type == html.ElementNode && n.Data == "span" { for _, a := range n.Attr { if a.Key == "class" && a.Val == "text" { fmt.Println("Quote:", n.FirstChild.Data) } } } if n.Type == html.ElementNode && n.Data == "small" { for _, a := range n.Attr { if a.Key == "class" && a.Val == "author" { fmt.Println("Author:", n.FirstChild.Data) } } } for c := n.FirstChild; c != nil; c = c.NextSibling { processNode(c) } } processNode(doc) } ``` **The Node Parser API is great when you need to process the entire document. For memory efficiency, we can use a pointer to the actual document and process our data as we traverse it.** ## Extracting Data With Tokenizer Tokenizer processes the page a bit differently. `html.NewTokenizer(resp.Body)` is used to create a tokenizer object out of our response body. We then choose which tokens (HTML tags, text content or attributes) that we’d like to extract from the page. When processing each token, we have two boolean objects: `inQuote` and `inAuthor`. If the token is inside a quote or an author, we trim it and print its data to the console. While our output from this code is the same, it actually functions very differently. With Node Parser, we process our data one node at a time as we go through the tree. With tokenizer, we process it one chunk at a time. In the code below, we specify two start tokens: `span` and `small`. If our chunk is a `span` element, and its `class` is `text` we print it to the console. If our chunk is a `small` and its `class` is `author`, we also print it to the console. All other tokens (HTML tags) on the page get completely ignored. ```none package main import ( "fmt" "net/http" "strings" "golang.org/x/net/html" ) func main() { resp, _ := http.Get("http://quotes.toscrape.com") defer resp.Body.Close() tokenizer := html.NewTokenizer(resp.Body) inQuote := false inAuthor := false for { tt := tokenizer.Next() switch tt { case html.ErrorToken: return case html.StartTagToken: t := tokenizer.Token() if t.Data == "span" { for _, a := range t.Attr { if a.Key == "class" && a.Val == "text" { inQuote = true } } } if t.Data == "small" { for _, a := range t.Attr { if a.Key == "class" && a.Val == "author" { inAuthor = true } } } case html.TextToken: if inQuote { fmt.Println("Quote:", strings.TrimSpace(tokenizer.Token().Data)) inQuote = false } if inAuthor { fmt.Println("Author:", strings.TrimSpace(tokenizer.Token().Data)) inAuthor = false } } } } ``` **Tokenizer is a bit more low level than the Node Parser, but it’s also far more efficient. We only need to process the relevant tokens (HTML tags) instead of traversing the entire document. This is best for processing large chunks from data streams. With Tokenizer, you only need to process relevant data instead of the entire page.** ## Third Party Alternatives Both Node Parser and Tokenizer are pretty low level in comparison to the tools you get with Python and JavaScript. Here are some third party tools that can make scraping a bit easier. ### Goquery Built as a Go alternative to Jquery, [Goquery](https://github.com/PuerkitoBio/goquery) is an excellent choice if you’re looking for a more intuitive parser. With Goquery, you get support for DOM traversal and CSS selectors. This is much more like the solutions you might be used to in other languages. ### htmlquery Similar to Goquery, [htmlquery](https://github.com/antchfx/htmlquery) allows us to use both DOM traversal and selectors. However, with htmlquery, we use XPath selectors instead of CSS selectors. The choice between Goquery and htmlquery should really be based on which type of selector you prefer. ### Colly [Colly](https://github.com/gocolly/colly) is a full fledged web scraping framework for Go. With Colly, we get support for CSS selectors, concurrency and much more. You can think of it as a Go alternative to [Scrapy](/blog/how-tos/web-scraping-with-scrapy). If you’re interested in using Colly, we have a great tutorial on it [here](/blog/how-tos/web-scraping-go). ### Bright Data Web Scraper Our [Web Scraper](/products/web-scraper) allows you to bypass the scraping process entirely. With Web Scraper, we scrape the page and return its data to you in JSON format. This is an excellent choice if you just want to make an API request and get on with the day instead of traversing the DOM, writing tokens or writing selectors. Our Web Scraper isn’t a Go library, it’s an API service. If you know how to handle a REST API, this is really simple way to automate your scraping process. ## Conclusion Now you know how to parse HTML using Go. For a more full featured skillset, take a look at our guide on [proxy integration in Go](/blog/how-tos/go-proxy-servers). If you want to traverse an entire page, use Node Parser. If you only want to parse relevant data from a page, try out the Tokenizer. If neither of these suit your needs, there are a variety of third party tools like Bright Data’s Web Scrapers. Sign up now and start your free trial! Contact usStart free trial No credit card required [ ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-nulty-682803187/) Jake Nulty Technical Writer 6 years experience Jacob Nulty is a Detroit-based software developer and technical writer exploring AI and human philosophy, with experience in Python, Rust, and blockchain. Expertise Data Structures Python Rust [ View all articles ](https://brightdata.com/blog/authors/jake-nulty) Table of Contents Dedicated Scraper APIs & No-Code Scrapers Over 1000 scrapers for all popular domains. Simplify your web scraping. [See pricing](/pricing/web-scraper "See pricing") Just want data? Skip scraping. Hundreds of ready-to-use datasets from all popular domains. [See pricing](/pricing/datasets "See pricing") [ ](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?t=How+to+Parse+HTML+With+Golang%3F&u=https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data/parse-html-with-golang) [ ](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&title=How+to+Parse+HTML+With+Golang%3F&url=https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data/parse-html-with-golang) [ ](http://www.reddit.com/submit?title=How+to+Parse+HTML+With+Golang%3F&url=https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data/parse-html-with-golang) ## You might also be interested in [ ](https://brightdata.com/blog/ai/openhuman-with-bright-data "Production-Ready Web Access in OpenHuman Through the Bright Data CLI") [AI Antonello Zanini Technical Writer ### Production-Ready Web Access in OpenHuman Through the Bright Data CLI Integrate Bright Data CLI with OpenHuman to enable production-ready web access and data collection for AI agents. 09-Sep-2026 12 min read ](https://brightdata.com/blog/ai/openhuman-with-bright-data) [ ](https://brightdata.com/blog/ai/minimax-m3-with-bright-data "Giving self-hosted MiniMax M3 agents live web access with Bright Data") [AI Satyam Tripathi Technical Writer ### Giving self-hosted MiniMax M3 agents live web access with Bright Data Self-hosted MiniMax M3 agents get live web access using Bright Data’s search and scraping tools. 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