📸 Website Screenshot & PDF API — Pixel-Perfect Captures in Under 3 Seconds

The fastest screenshot API on the market. Capture any webpage as PNG, JPEG, WebP, or PDF with sub-3-second delivery. Competitors take 6-21 seconds. We deliver in 1-2 seconds.

---

Architecture Overview

flowchart TB
    subgraph Client["Your Application"]
        REQ["HTTP Request"]
    end

    subgraph API["Screenshot & PDF API"]
        ROUTER["Request Router"]
        VALIDATE["Input Validation"]
        CACHE["10-min LRU Cache"]
        BROWSER["Pre-Warmed Puppeteer<br/>Chromium Browser"]
        RENDER["Page Renderer"]
        FORMAT["Output Formatter"]
        CHARGE["PPE Billing"]
    end

    subgraph Output["Response"]
        BIN["Binary Image/PDF"]
        B64["Base64 JSON"]
    end

    REQ --> ROUTER
    ROUTER -->|"/screenshot"| VALIDATE
    ROUTER -->|"/pdf"| VALIDATE
    ROUTER -->|"/batch"| VALIDATE
    VALIDATE --> CACHE

    CACHE -->|"Hit"| FORMAT
    CACHE -->|"Miss"| BROWSER
    BROWSER --> RENDER --> FORMAT
    FORMAT --> CHARGE
    CHARGE --> BIN & B64

    style Client fill:#1a1a2e,color:#fff
    style API fill:#16213e,color:#fff
    style Output fill:#533483,color:#fff

---

Performance Comparison

gantt
    title Screenshot Latency Comparison (lower is better)
    dateFormat X
    axisFormat %s seconds

    section This API
    Screenshot (2.1s)     :done, 0, 2100
    PDF (1.2s)            :done, 0, 1200

    section Competitor A
    Screenshot (8.4s)     :crit, 0, 8400

    section Competitor B
    Screenshot (14.2s)    :crit, 0, 14200

    section Competitor C
    Screenshot (21s)      :crit, 0, 21000

Metric	This API	Competitor Avg
Screenshot latency	2.1 seconds	14.5 seconds
PDF latency	1.2 seconds	8.3 seconds
Uptime	100%	74-94%
Formats	PNG, JPEG, WebP, PDF	PNG only
Batch support	20 URLs per call	None
Full-page capture	Yes	Limited

---

Request Flow

sequenceDiagram
    participant App as Your App
    participant API as Screenshot API
    participant Cache as LRU Cache
    participant Chrome as Puppeteer Chrome

    App->>API: GET /screenshot?url=github.com&width=1280
    API->>Cache: Lookup (url + params hash)

    alt Cache Hit (within 10 min)
        Cache-->>API: Cached screenshot
        API-->>App: Image binary (instant)
    else Cache Miss
        API->>Chrome: Create new page
        Chrome->>Chrome: Set viewport (1280x720)
        Chrome->>Chrome: Navigate to URL
        Chrome->>Chrome: Wait for networkidle2
        Chrome-->>API: Screenshot buffer
        API->>Cache: Store screenshot
        API->>API: Actor.charge($0.005)
        API-->>App: Image binary (~2.1s)
    end

---

API Endpoints

GET /screenshot — Capture webpage

GET /screenshot?url=https://github.com&width=1920&height=1080&format=png&fullPage=true

Parameter	Type	Default	Range	Description
url	string	required	—	URL to capture
width	number	1280	320-3840	Viewport width in pixels
height	number	720	200-2160	Viewport height in pixels
format	string	png	png, jpeg, webp	Image format
fullPage	boolean	false	—	Capture full scrollable page
quality	number	80	1-100	Compression (jpeg/webp only)
delay	number	0	0-10000	Wait ms before capture

GET /pdf — Generate PDF

GET /pdf?url=https://github.com&format=A4&landscape=false

Parameter	Type	Default	Options	Description
url	string	required	—	URL to convert
format	string	A4	A4, Letter, Legal	Paper size
landscape	boolean	false	—	Landscape orientation
printBackground	boolean	true	—	Include backgrounds

POST /batch — Batch screenshots

POST /batch
{
  "urls": [
    "https://google.com",
    "https://github.com",
    "https://apple.com"
  ],
  "width": 1280,
  "height": 720,
  "format": "jpeg"
}

---

Output Formats

Binary (Default)

Returns raw bytes with headers:

Content-Type: image/png (or image/jpeg, image/webp, application/pdf)
Content-Length: 15856
X-Latency-Ms: 2172
X-From-Cache: false

Base64 JSON

Send header Accept: application/json to get:

{
  "base64": "iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAABQ...",
  "mimeType": "image/png",
  "size": 15856,
  "latencyMs": 2172,
  "fromCache": false,
  "url": "https://github.com"
}

Batch Response

{
  "count": 3,
  "succeeded": 3,
  "failed": 0,
  "latencyMs": 4521,
  "results": [
    { "url": "https://google.com", "base64": "...", "mimeType": "image/jpeg", "size": 12340 },
    { "url": "https://github.com", "base64": "...", "mimeType": "image/jpeg", "size": 45678 },
    { "url": "https://apple.com", "base64": "...", "mimeType": "image/jpeg", "size": 23456 }
  ]
}

---

Use Case Workflows

Visual QA Testing Pipeline

flowchart LR
    DEPLOY["New Deployment"] --> URLS["Page URL List"]
    URLS --> BATCH["Screenshot API<br/>POST /batch"]
    BATCH --> COMPARE["Visual Diff<br/>Engine"]
    COMPARE --> PASS["All Match?"]
    PASS -->|Yes| OK["Deploy to Prod"]
    PASS -->|No| ALERT["Alert QA Team<br/>+ Diff Report"]

    style BATCH fill:#10b981,color:#fff
    style OK fill:#3b82f6,color:#fff
    style ALERT fill:#ef4444,color:#fff

Social Media Preview Generator

flowchart LR
    BLOG["New Blog Post<br/>Published"] --> SCREEN["Screenshot API<br/>GET /screenshot"]
    SCREEN --> THUMB["1200x630<br/>OG Image"]
    THUMB --> TWITTER["Twitter Card"]
    THUMB --> LINKEDIN["LinkedIn Preview"]
    THUMB --> FACEBOOK["Facebook Share"]

    style SCREEN fill:#10b981,color:#fff

Competitive Price Monitoring

flowchart LR
    SCHEDULE["Daily Cron Job"] --> URLS["Competitor<br/>Product Pages"]
    URLS --> SCREEN["Screenshot API<br/>POST /batch"]
    SCREEN --> ARCHIVE["Screenshot<br/>Archive"]
    ARCHIVE --> COMPARE["Price Change<br/>Detection"]
    COMPARE --> ALERT["Slack Alert:<br/>Price Changed!"]

    style SCREEN fill:#10b981,color:#fff
    style ALERT fill:#f59e0b,color:#fff

PDF Report Generation

flowchart LR
    DASH["Web Dashboard<br/>URL"] --> PDF["Screenshot API<br/>GET /pdf"]
    PDF --> EMAIL["Email PDF<br/>to Stakeholders"]
    PDF --> DRIVE["Save to<br/>Google Drive"]
    PDF --> ARCHIVE["Monthly<br/>Report Archive"]

    style PDF fill:#10b981,color:#fff

---

Pricing

Event	Price	Cost per 100	Cost per 1,000
Screenshot	$0.005	$0.50	$5.00
PDF	$0.008	$0.80	$8.00

Cost Comparison

Solution	Per Screenshot	Monthly (1K/day)
This Actor	$0.005	$150
ScreenshotAPI.net	$0.01	$300
Urlbox	$0.02	$600
Custom Puppeteer server	$50/mo + maintenance	$50+
Browserless.io	$0.008	$240

---

Technical Details

flowchart TB
    subgraph "Actor Lifecycle"
        INIT["Actor.init()"] --> LAUNCH["Launch Puppeteer<br/>(pre-warmed)"]
        LAUNCH --> LISTEN["HTTP Server<br/>on STANDBY_PORT"]
        LISTEN --> READY["Ready for<br/>Requests"]
    end

    subgraph "Per Request"
        READY --> PAGE["Create New Page"]
        PAGE --> VIEWPORT["Set Viewport"]
        VIEWPORT --> NAV["Navigate to URL<br/>(networkidle2, 25s timeout)"]
        NAV --> DELAY["Optional Delay"]
        DELAY --> CAPTURE["Screenshot or PDF"]
        CAPTURE --> CLOSE["Close Page"]
        CLOSE --> READY
    end

    style LAUNCH fill:#10b981,color:#fff
    style CAPTURE fill:#3b82f6,color:#fff

• Browser: Chromium via Puppeteer, pre-launched at startup
• Concurrency: 3 parallel captures per batch
• Cache: In-memory LRU, 100 entries, 10-minute TTL
• Timeout: 25 seconds per page navigation
• Base Image: apify/actor-node-puppeteer-chrome:22-24.11.1

---

Integrations

Platform	Integration Method
Zapier	Webhook -> GET /screenshot
Make (Integromat)	HTTP module
n8n	HTTP Request node
GitHub Actions	curl in CI/CD pipeline
Selenium/Playwright	Screenshot service replacement
Apify Orchestrator	Direct Standby URL call

---

FAQ

Q: What browser is used? A: Chromium via Puppeteer, pre-warmed at actor startup for instant response.

Q: Can it capture login-protected pages? A: Current version captures public pages only. Authentication support coming soon.

Q: Maximum resolution? A: 3840x2160 (4K Ultra HD). Default: 1280x720 (HD).

Q: How does the cache work? A: Screenshots cached in-memory for 10 minutes. Same URL + same parameters = instant cached response at no additional cost.

Q: Can it handle SPAs / JavaScript-heavy pages? A: Yes! Puppeteer renders JavaScript completely before capture. Uses networkidle2 to wait for all resources.

Q: What's the maximum batch size? A: 20 URLs per batch request. Processed with bounded concurrency (3 at a time).

---

Related Actors

• Web Content Extractor API — Extract structured JSON from any URL
• WebSight API — Website intelligence (SEO, tech stack, AI score)
• Website Contact Scraper — Extract emails, phones, social links

---

Built by George Kioko | 6,196+ data extraction jobs | 35+ production APIs | Sub-3s delivery guaranteed