BeautifulSoup: what's the difference between 'lxml' and 'html.parser' and 'html5lib' parsers?

From the docs's summarized table of advantages and disadvantages:

  1. html.parser - BeautifulSoup(markup, "html.parser")

    • Advantages: Batteries included, Decent speed, Lenient (as of Python 2.7.3 and 3.2.)

    • Disadvantages: Not very lenient (before Python 2.7.3 or 3.2.2)

  2. lxml - BeautifulSoup(markup, "lxml")

    • Advantages: Very fast, Lenient

    • Disadvantages: External C dependency

  3. html5lib - BeautifulSoup(markup, "html5lib")

    • Advantages: Extremely lenient, Parses pages the same way a web browser does, Creates valid HTML5

    • Disadvantages: Very slow, External Python dependency


The key differences are highlighted in the BeautifulSoup documentation:

  • Differences between parsers

The basic reasoning why would you prefer one parser instead of others:

  • html.parser- built-in - no extra dependencies needed
  • html5lib - the most lenient - better use it if HTML is broken
  • lxml - the fastest