Browshot

About Browshot

Browshot is a REST API for capturing screenshots and thumbnails of web pages. Requests are made with GET or POST to api.browshot.com, authenticated with an API key, and responses are returned in JSON. A simple API endpoint allows real-time screenshot retrieval with a single request, while a complete API exposes additional endpoints for screenshot creation, batch and crawl operations, instance and browser management, and account information.

The API supports configurable screenshot parameters including page size, cache duration, delay before capture, browser window dimensions, dark mode, popup hiding, SSL validation, custom referrers, POST data, cookies, custom HTTP headers, and CSS-selector-based element capture. It can save and classify the HTML of rendered pages, execute custom JavaScript after page load, and take screenshots of pages requiring login credentials. Automation steps allow multi-step browser interactions and multiple screenshots per session, and trackers can extract data such as prices, page titles, or search rankings from a page.

Additional features include webhook notifications when a screenshot finishes or fails, and automatic hosting of screenshots and thumbnails on S3, Browshot's own storage, or a CDN. Open-source client libraries are available for Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, C#, and Node.js, along with command-line usage via wget, curl, and fetch. The service is aimed at developers who need to integrate automated screenshot capture into their applications.

Key features

• Real-time website screenshot and thumbnail capture via REST API
• Automated screenshot hosting on S3/Browshot/CDN
• Custom browser automation steps and JavaScript execution after page load
• Trackers to extract page data like search rank, prices, and delivery dates
• Custom POST data, referrer, cookies, and HTTP headers for screenshot requests
• Screenshot notification hooks (webhooks) sent to a custom URL when finished

Frequently asked questions