Website Screenshot Generator

What is Website Screenshot Generator?

Website Screenshot Generator is a powerful API for taking full-page or viewport-sized screenshots of websites in PNG or JPEG format. Built with Playwright and Node.js, it runs reliably on the Apify platform and handles dynamic content rendering, JavaScript execution, and CSS transformations. Perfect for web scraping projects, SEO audits, visual regression testing, and archiving web content.

What data does Website Screenshot Generator extract?

For each screenshot captured, the actor returns:

Field	Type	Description
url	String	The original URL that was requested
finalUrl	String	The final URL after any redirects
screenshotUrl	String	Public URL of the screenshot in the key-value store
width	Integer	Width of the screenshot in pixels
height	Integer	Height of the screenshot in pixels
bytes	Integer	Size of the screenshot file in bytes
format	String	Format of the screenshot (png or jpeg)
scrapedAt	String	ISO 8601 timestamp when the screenshot was taken

How to use Website Screenshot Generator

1. Prepare your input — Choose URLs to screenshot, select format (PNG/JPEG), viewport size, and any elements to hide
2. Run the actor — Start a run with your configuration
3. Download screenshots — Access images via the provided URLs in the default dataset
4. Handle errors — Failed URLs are not charged and never appear in the dataset; they are listed with the reason in the run's ERRORS key-value record

Example input

{
    "urls": [
        "https://example.com",
        "https://github.com",
        "https://news.ycombinator.com"
    ],
    "fullPage": true,
    "format": "png",
    "viewportWidth": 1280,
    "viewportHeight": 800,
    "waitMs": 1000,
    "hideSelectors": [".modal", "#cookiebanner"]
}

Example output

{
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "finalUrl": "https://example.com/",
    "screenshotUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/xyz/records/example-com-abc123ef.png",
    "width": 1280,
    "height": 5432,
    "bytes": 285643,
    "format": "png",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-28T12:34:56.789Z"
}

Input parameters

URLs

urls (array, required) — Array of website URLs to screenshot

• Type: Array of strings
• Default: ["https://example.com"]
• Example: ["https://example.com", "https://github.com"]
• Aliases: Also accepts url (single string), startUrls (array of objects with url property)

Screenshot options

fullPage (boolean) — Capture entire page height instead of just the viewport

• Type: Boolean
• Default: false
• Note: Full page screenshots are clipped at 20,000 px to avoid extremely large files

format (string) — Output image format

• Type: Enum: png, jpeg
• Default: png

quality (integer) — JPEG compression quality (only for JPEG format)

• Type: Integer between 1-100
• Default: 80

Viewport options

viewportWidth (integer) — Browser viewport width in pixels

• Type: Integer between 320-3840
• Default: 1280

viewportHeight (integer) — Browser viewport height in pixels

• Type: Integer between 240-2160
• Default: 800

Timing options

waitUntil (string) — Page load event to wait for before taking screenshot

• Type: Enum: load, domcontentloaded, networkidle
• Default: load
• Values:
  • load — Wait for page load event (fastest)
  • domcontentloaded — Wait for DOM to be parsed (useful for static content)
  • networkidle — Wait for network activity to settle (most reliable for dynamic content)

waitMs (integer) — Additional time to wait after page load event

• Type: Integer between 0-30000 (milliseconds)
• Default: 1000
• Use case: Allow time for JavaScript animations or deferred content loading

Advanced options

hideSelectors (array) — CSS selectors to hide before taking screenshot

• Type: Array of strings
• Default: []
• Example: [".modal", "#cookiebanner", ".cookie-consent"]
• Use case: Hide cookie banners, modals, or other overlays to get a clean screenshot

Pricing

Website Screenshot Generator charges $0.002 per screenshot. This includes:

• One screenshot per charged event
• Full-page rendering with JavaScript execution
• Viewport and device emulation
• CSS manipulation and element hiding

Note: Runs on 2 GB memory (Chrome rendering) cost 2 apify-actor-start events in addition to the screenshot charges. Default input {} costs 2 start events + 1 screenshot = 3 events total at $0.002/screenshot.

Website Screenshot Generator vs. alternatives

Feature	Website Screenshot	Headless Browser	API Screenshot Service
Speed	3-8s per screenshot	5-15s setup + per screenshot	2-5s (no control)
JavaScript Rendering	✓ Full support	✓ Full support	✓ Usually supported
Viewport Control	✓ Customizable	✓ Customizable	✗ Limited
JPEG Quality	✓ 1-100	✓ Configurable	✗ Fixed
Hide Elements	✓ CSS-based	✓ JavaScript-based	✗ Not available
Batch Processing	✓ 10+ URLs/run	✗ Single use	✗ Per-screenshot cost
Cost per Screenshot	$0.002	~$0.001 (1GB) + setup	$0.01-0.05
Login Pages	✗ No auth support	✗ No auth support	✗ No auth support

Using Website Screenshot Generator with AI agents and MCP

The Website Screenshot Generator is discoverable and callable via the Apify MCP server for Claude and other AI agents. When called by an agent:

• The actor accepts flexible input: url, urls, startUrls, targetUrls, or websites all map to the canonical urls field
• Default input {} succeeds with 1 screenshot of https://example.com
• Screenshots are stored as public URLs in the key-value store, making them accessible to downstream agents or workflows

MCP example (for agents)

// An agent can call this actor with minimal input
const actor = await client.actor('webdatatools~website-screenshot');
const run = await actor.call({
  url: 'https://example.com',
  format: 'jpeg',
  quality: 90
});
const { defaultDatasetId } = run;
const items = await apifyClient.dataset(defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items[0].screenshotUrl); // Use the screenshot

FAQ

Legal and safety

Q: Can I screenshot pages behind login walls? A: No. The actor takes screenshots as an anonymous user. Sites that require login will return a login page or challenge page.

Q: Does this tool bypass paywalls or bot protection? A: No. Sites with bot walls (Cloudflare, DataDome, AWS WAF) may render a challenge page or block the request. There is no proxy or residential IP option; screenshots are taken directly from the Apify datacenter.

Q: Is this legal? A: Screenshots of publicly accessible web pages for personal use, archival, or testing are generally legal. Always respect the site's terms of service and robots.txt.

Technical

Q: Why is my screenshot blank or showing an error? A: Common causes:

• The site detects bot activity and blocks the request
• The site requires login
• The site uses aggressive anti-bot measures
• The page takes longer than 60 seconds to load

Try increasing waitMs or switching waitUntil to networkidle.

Q: How do I hide multiple elements? A: Pass multiple selectors in hideSelectors:

{
  "urls": ["https://example.com"],
  "hideSelectors": [".cookiebanner", "#modal", "[role='complementary']"]
}

Q: What is the maximum screenshot height? A: Full-page screenshots are clipped at 20,000 pixels to prevent extremely large files. Taller pages are cut off at this limit.

Q: Can I use this with n8n, Make, or Zapier? A: Yes, via the Apify integration in each platform. Set the input parameters in the actor configuration and map the dataset output.

Integrations

Q: How do I use this with a workflow tool? A: Website Screenshot Generator works with any tool that supports Apify actors:

• n8n: Add an "Apify" node, select "website-screenshot", and configure the input
• Make: Add the Apify module and set the actor input
• Zapier: Use a Zapier task to call the Apify API with actor ID webdatatools~website-screenshot

All tools receive the dataset rows in the output, including the screenshotUrl.

Related Actors

Part of the webdatatools web-intelligence suite — every Actor is pay-per-event, reads public data without a login, and returns one clean row per entity:

Browse the whole suite at webdatatools, or call ten of these Actors straight from Claude, Cursor or Cline with the webdatatools MCP server.

Website & domain intelligence

• Email Extractor — Website Contact & Social Finder — e-mails, phones and social profiles per domain
• Tech Stack Detector — Wappalyzer & BuiltWith Alternative — CMS, e-commerce, analytics, pixels and payments per domain
• Domain DNS & Email Security Checker — SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX provider, registrar and domain age
• Domain Security Audit (TLS, HTTP headers, redirects, robots) — TLS expiry, security headers, redirect chain, robots and llms.txt
• Subdomain Finder (Certificate Transparency) — every subdomain seen in CT logs, with a live DNS check
• Bulk Core Web Vitals & PageSpeed Audit — Lighthouse scores, LCP, CLS, INP and top fixes per URL
• On-Page SEO Audit — title, meta, headings, links, images and schema issues per page
• Sitemap URL Extractor & Change Monitor — every sitemap URL, or new and removed pages between runs
• Wayback Machine Snapshot & Page Change Tracker — how a page changed over time, or every archived snapshot
• Bulk Domain WHOIS & RDAP Lookup — registrar, dates, status and nameservers per domain
• Web Scraper — CSS Selector & Data Extractor — pull any CSS selector off any page, one row per URL

Content for AI, LLMs and RAG

• AI Web Search & Read: Google results as clean Markdown — a query turned into clean Markdown from the top search results
• Website to Markdown — Content Crawler for LLM & RAG — any site as clean Markdown per page, no browser
• Article & News Extractor (clean text, author, date, markdown) — clean article text, author, date and Markdown per URL
• Structured Data & JSON-LD Extractor (Schema.org, Open Graph) — Schema.org and Open Graph data from any page
• Google News Scraper (RSS search by keyword, topic, site) — news results by keyword, topic or site
• Press Release Monitor: PR Newswire, BusinessWire, GlobeNewswire — PR Newswire, Business Wire and GlobeNewswire releases

Search, video and social

• YouTube Shorts Scraper — Shorts from channels, hashtags and searches with view counts
• Pinterest Pins Scraper — latest pins of public Pinterest profiles and boards
• YouTube Transcript Scraper — captions and subtitles as text + timed segments, per video or channel
• Google Search Results Scraper — SERP API — organic SERP results per keyword and country
• YouTube Comments Scraper — Comments & Replies — comments and replies with likes, no API key
• YouTube Channel Latest Videos (RSS, no API key) — the latest 15 videos of any channel from RSS
• YouTube Channel Scraper (videos, shorts, live) — a channel's full video, shorts and stream list
• YouTube Search Results Scraper (videos, channels, no API key) — videos, channels and playlists per query
• YouTube Video Details Scraper (views, likes, description, tags) — views, likes, description, tags and chapters per video
• Apple Podcasts Lookup & Episodes Scraper — podcast metadata and episodes from iTunes and RSS
• Bluesky Post, Search & Profile Scraper — posts, profiles, followers and threads from the AT Protocol API
• Telegram Channel Posts Scraper — posts, views and media flags from any public channel
• Substack Publication & Posts Scraper — archive, authors and paywall status per publication
• Google Play Reviews Scraper — reviews, ratings, replies and app versions per app
• App Store Reviews Scraper — iOS reviews and ratings per app and country
• Google Trends Scraper — interest over time, by region, and related queries per keyword
• Google Ads Transparency Scraper — ads any advertiser runs on Google, with format and dates
• Keyword Suggestions Scraper (Google, YouTube, Amazon, Bing) — autocomplete keyword ideas from four search engines
• Bilibili Scraper (Videos, Search, Popular) — Chinese video platform: views, likes, coins, danmaku, uploader
• Mastodon Scraper (Hashtags, Accounts, Trending) — public fediverse posts by hashtag, account or trending
• Meetup Events Scraper (Search by Keyword & City) — upcoming events with RSVPs, fees, venues and groups
• Eventbrite Scraper (Events by Keyword & City) — events by keyword and city with venue, dates and organizer

Leads, jobs and company data

• Career Site Jobs API (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday +1) — company domains in, their open jobs out, ATS detected automatically
• Workday Jobs Scraper — jobs with full descriptions from any Workday career site
• Google Maps Scraper — businesses with phone, website, address, rating and coordinates per search
• LinkedIn Jobs Scraper — job titles, companies, locations and full descriptions from LinkedIn job search
• Company 360: full company profile from a domain — one row per domain: contacts, tech, security, hiring and company facts
• Hiring Signals Scraper (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable) — open jobs and hiring velocity from 10 public ATS boards
• Y Combinator Companies & Founders Scraper — YC startups by batch, industry and hiring status
• Wikidata Entity & Company Enrichment (facts, IDs, links) — HQ, founders, employees, revenue and social IDs per company
• Email Validator & Verifier — Bulk Email Check — syntax, MX, disposable, role and free-provider checks
• OpenStreetMap POI Extractor (Overpass API: shops, amenities) — shops and amenities by radius, bbox or area
• Stock, Crypto & FX Quotes — one row per symbol from Yahoo, Binance and ECB rates
• Remote Jobs Aggregator (RemoteOK, WWR, Hacker News) — one clean row per remote job, de-duplicated across feeds
• Greenhouse Jobs Scraper — jobs with descriptions from any Greenhouse job board
• Lever Jobs Scraper — jobs with descriptions from any Lever careers page
• Ashby Jobs Scraper — jobs, salaries and descriptions from any Ashby job board
• SmartRecruiters Jobs Scraper — jobs with descriptions from any SmartRecruiters company
• Seek Jobs Scraper (Australia & New Zealand) — Seek job ads with salary, work type and location
• Dice Jobs Scraper — US tech jobs from Dice with salary and remote flag
• AutoScout24 Scraper — European car listings with price, mileage and seller
• Rightmove Scraper — UK property for sale or rent with price and agent
• Wellfound Jobs Scraper (AngelList Startup Jobs) — startup jobs with salary and equity ranges, company size and stage
• Yandex Maps Scraper (Places, Ratings, Phones) — businesses in Russia, Türkiye and the CIS with phones, ratings, hours
• Craigslist Scraper (Listings, Prices, Locations) — listings in any area and category with price, date and coordinates
• JobStreet Scraper (Malaysia, Singapore, PH, ID + JobsDB) — JobStreet and JobsDB jobs in 6 Asian countries with parsed salaries
• InfoJobs Scraper (Spain Jobs, Salaries, Companies) — Spanish jobs with salary range, contract type and full description
• Redfin Scraper (Homes for Sale, Prices, Details) — US homes for sale or sold from any Redfin search, with price and details
• Kleinanzeigen Scraper (Ads, Prices, Locations) — German classifieds with price, VB flag, ZIP, city and seller type

Developer, app and research data

• npm, PyPI & Crates.io Package Health Checker — releases, downloads, deprecation and a health score
• GitHub Repository Health & Activity Report — stars, commits, contributors and risk flags per repo
• VS Code Marketplace Extension Scraper (installs, ratings) — installs, ratings and versions per extension
• Chrome Web Store Extension Scraper (installs, ratings) — users, rating, version and developer per extension
• Google Play Scraper — apps, ratings, installs, developer contact and reviews
• App Store (iOS) App Metadata, Ratings & Top Charts Lookup — ratings, price, version and charts per app
• CrossRef DOI & Citation Metadata Lookup — papers, authors, journals and citation counts
• FDA Recalls & Adverse Events Monitor (openFDA) — food, drug and device recalls from openFDA
• iCal / ICS Calendar Feed to Events Extractor — any public calendar feed as event rows
• Shopify Store Products Scraper — catalog, prices, variants and stock per store
• Hacker News Search & Front Page Scraper — stories, comments and points by query or front page
• GitHub Trending Repositories Scraper — trending repos and developers by language and period
• Stack Overflow & Stack Exchange Q&A Scraper — questions, answers and scores by query, tag or site
• Bulk Image Downloader — download image URLs to storage with size, dimensions and a ZIP
• Google Flights Scraper (Prices, Airlines, Stops) — flight prices, airlines, times, stops and CO2 by route and date
• Google Hotels Scraper (Prices, Ratings, Reviews) — hotel prices per night, stars, rating and reviews by city and dates
• AliExpress Scraper (Search Products & Prices) — AliExpress search results with USD price, discount and rank
• Lazada Scraper (Products, Prices, Sold, Ratings) — Lazada products in 6 countries with price, rating, units sold and seller

Support

For issues, feature requests, or feedback:

• Documentation: Apify SDK Docs
• GitHub Issues: Report a bug
• Apify Community: Ask on the forum