Best for
- Developers needing to scrape modern JavaScript-rendered websites
- Data collection scenarios requiring batch fetching
- Users who want automatic extraction of main content
F
Fetcher MCP Server
Community
MCP server for fetching web page content using Playwright headless browser.
GitHub source repository ↗
43FMRS · D
Fetcher MCP is a powerful web scraping server that leverages Playwright to support dynamic content, and offers intelligent extraction, batch fetching, and other features. It is suitable for developers dealing with modern web applications, but note the anti-crawler mechanisms and resource consumption.
Fetcher MCP is an MCP server that uses Playwright headless browser to fetch web page content. It supports JavaScript execution, enabling it to handle dynamic web content and modern web applications. Built-in Readability algorithm automatically extracts the main content from web pages, removing ads, navigation, and other non-essential elements. Supports both HTML and Markdown output formats. The fetch_urls tool enables concurrent fetching of multiple URLs, improving efficiency for batch operations. Automatically blocks unnecessary resources (images, stylesheets, fonts, media) to reduce bandwidth usage. Includes robust error handling and logging. Configurable parameters for timeouts, content extraction, and output formatting.
Tools
fetch_url
Fetches web page content from a specified URL, with support for JavaScript rendering, intelligent content extraction, Markdown conversion, timeout and content extraction settings.
fetch_urls
Fetches content from multiple URLs in parallel, improving batch processing efficiency.
browser_install
Automatically installs the Playwright Chromium browser binary, with options to install system dependencies and force installation.
Setup
- Run directly with npx:
npx -y fetcher-mcp. - First-time setup: install the required browser by running
npx playwright install chromium. - For HTTP and SSE transport, use
--transport=http --host=0.0.0.0 --port=3000. - Configure MCP in Claude Desktop by editing the config file (see above).
claude_desktop_config.json
{
"mcpServers": {
"fetcher": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"fetcher-mcp"
]
}
}
}
Fit and risk
Not for
- Scenarios where full original HTML is required and content extraction is prohibited (can be bypassed with settings, but extraction is default)
- Users who need persistent login sessions but cannot provide custom cookies
- Deployment in environments without Node.js and without desire to use Docker
Required permissions
- Access to network to download web resources
- Running a headless browser (Playwright Chromium)
- Read and write temporary files (for browser cache)
Risks and side effects
- May be identified as a crawler by target websites and trigger anti-bot mechanisms
- Headless browser execution may consume significant memory and CPU
- Fetched content may be subject to copyright or terms of use restrictions
Troubleshooting
- If you get a browser not installed error, run `npx playwright install chromium`
- If the page loading times out, increase the `timeout` parameter or set `waitUntil` to 'networkidle'
- If content extraction is incomplete, try setting `extractContent: false` and `returnHtml: true` to get the raw HTML
Use cases
Fetching dynamic web pages that render JavaScript
Batch fetching multiple web pages for data collection
Converting web content to Markdown for integration into documents or knowledge bases
Handling anti-crawler mechanisms such as CAPTCHA or redirects
Supported clients
Claude DesktopFull support