Are there implementations of the W3C DOM other than in web browsers?

Question

So we all know that the DOM (Document Object Model) is an interface that represents HTML pages in web browsers and that you can interact with it using JavaScript.

An

Answer 1

The term you're looking for is "headless browser" and yes they do exist. No need to spin up an instance of IE, Chrome, or firefox to execute JavaScript and mine data from the DOM. Check out Phantom.js or Zombie.js.

Plenty of other questions related to this topic:

• Real headless browser
• Headless Browser for Python (Javascript support REQUIRED!)
• headless internet browser?

Answer 2

And now and then I read comments about needing a web browser to use the DOM. But is this true?

Of course not. Your understanding is correct.