cefsharp/cefsharp

★ 10,223C#Audience · developerComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · moderate

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((cefsharp))
    What it does
      Embed Chromium browser
      Run JavaScript in .NET
      Web inside desktop apps
    Variants
      WPF version
      WinForms version
      OffScreen headless
    Tech Stack
      C# and C++/CLI
      .NET framework
      NuGet install
    Use Cases
      Browser panels in apps
      Headless scraping
      Desktop web wrappers

mindmap root((cefsharp)) What it does Embed Chromium browser Run JavaScript in .NET Web inside desktop apps Variants WPF version WinForms version OffScreen headless Tech Stack C# and C++/CLI .NET framework NuGet install Use Cases Browser panels in apps Headless scraping Desktop web wrappers

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Embed a Chromium browser panel inside a WPF or WinForms Windows desktop application so users can view web pages without switching apps.

USE CASE 2

Automate web page loading, JavaScript execution, and content extraction from within a .NET application using the OffScreen headless mode.

USE CASE 3

Build a Windows desktop app that wraps a web-based product, giving it a native application feel while running on web technologies.

Tech stack

C#C++C++/CLI.NETWPFWinFormsNuGet

Getting it running

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Chromium binaries bundled via NuGet are large, expect a significant download on first install.

Use freely in any project including commercial ones, as long as you keep the BSD copyright notice.

In plain English

CefSharp lets you embed a full web browser inside a Windows desktop application built with .NET. The browser it embeds is based on Chromium, the same open source project that powers Google Chrome. So rather than opening a separate browser window, your application can contain a browser panel directly inside its own interface. Users can load web pages, run JavaScript, and interact with web content without leaving your application. The library comes in a few forms to support different styles of Windows app development. There is a version for WPF applications, which is one of the more modern ways to build Windows desktop apps with .NET. There is also a version for WinForms, an older but still widely used Windows UI framework. A third version called OffScreen lets you load and process web pages without showing any visible window at all, which is useful for tasks like automated testing or scraping content from web pages. Installation is done through NuGet, which is the package manager for .NET projects. You add the appropriate CefSharp package to your project and it brings in all the necessary files, including the Chromium binaries. The README notes that these binaries are large, so download size is something to be aware of. About 30 percent of the library is written in a hybrid C++ and C# language called C++/CLI, which is what allows it to bridge between the native Chromium code and the .NET world. The remaining code is standard C# and can be used from any .NET language, including Visual Basic. CefSharp is licensed under the BSD license, which permits use in both commercial and open source applications. The project is maintained by the community and has been active for many years. Stable releases are published on NuGet, and pre-release builds are also available for testing newer Chromium versions before they reach a stable release.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

Using CefSharp WPF, add a browser panel to my WPF app that loads a URL from a text box when the user clicks a Go button.

Prompt 2

Show me how to run JavaScript in a CefSharp embedded browser and read the return value back into my C# code.

Prompt 3

How do I use CefSharp.OffScreen to scrape the HTML content of a web page that requires JavaScript to render its content?

Prompt 4

Set up CefSharp in a WinForms project via NuGet and intercept navigation events to block requests to certain domains.

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