HTMLUnit : super slow execution?

Question

I have been using HTMLUnit . It suits my requirements well. But it seems to be extremely slow. for example : I have automated the following scenario using HTMLUnit

Answer 1

For the current htmlUnit 2.13, setting options is slightly different from what maxmax has provided:

final WebClient webClient = new WebClient(BrowserVersion.CHROME);
webClient.getOptions().setCssEnabled(false);//if you don't need css
webClient.getOptions().setJavaScriptEnabled(false);//if you don't need js
HtmlPage page = webClient.getPage("http://XXX.xxx.xx");
...

In my own test, this is 8 times faster than the default options.(Note that this could be webpage-dependent)