Can I screenshot my localhost or a private staging site?

Webshot fetches publicly reachable URLs (private/reserved IPs are blocked for SSRF safety). For localhost or an internal app, expose it with a tunnel — e.g. Cloudflare Tunnel or ngrok — and point Webshot at the tunnel URL, or capture your public staging environment instead.

How do I generate Open Graph / social preview images programmatically?

Host an HTML template that renders the title/author/branding from query params, then call the Webshot API with mode=custom at 1200×630 and format=png. You get an OG image per page without running a headless browser yourself. Cache the result and reference it in your tag.

Can I run captures from my CI/CD pipeline?

Yes — your pipeline makes an HTTP POST to /api/capture and gets a PNG/JPG/WebP/PDF back. No Chromium install, no sandbox flags, no font caching to maintain in your runner. The free public form is 5/15-min per IP (too low for CI); use an API key for higher, predictable limits.

Why not just run Puppeteer/Playwright myself?

You can — but then you own the headless-Chrome stack: Chromium installs, version drift, fonts, the sandbox, memory tuning, and SSRF protection, in every environment. Webshot runs that infra so a one-line HTTP call replaces it. Self-host is also an option since the engine is open source.

Website screenshots, built into your dev workflow

Developers reach for Webshot constantly — to document an app in a README or PR, generate social-preview images on the fly, watch staging against production, or capture pages from CI. It's one HTTP call that returns a clean PNG, JPG, WebP, or PDF — no headless-Chrome stack to install, patch, or babysit.

⚙️ Read the API docs 📦 Grab an SDK (JS · Python · PHP) 🖥️ Try a capture

No key needed to try it. For CI volume, see pricing.

Why developers use Webshot

One HTTP call, no boilerplate

Skip Puppeteer/Playwright setup — Chromium installs, version drift, fonts, sandbox flags, SSRF guards. Your build just POSTs a URL and gets an image.

Official SDKs

Typed clients for JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, and PHP, with a clean exception hierarchy — drop it into a script, a Lambda, or a CI step.

Custom sizes & PDF

Desktop, tablet, mobile, or arbitrary width/height up to 4K — plus PDF output. Perfect for OG images (1200×630) and print-ready exports.

Open source, self-hostable

Don't want a dependency on us? The engine is open source — run it on your own box. Or use the hosted API and never think about Chrome again.

What developers automate with it

📚 Docs, READMEs & PR reviews

Auto-capture the current UI for your README, changelog, release notes, or a PR comment — "here's what this change looks like." Always current because you regenerate on each release.

🖼️ OG & social preview images

Render an HTML template at 1200×630 and serve a unique share image per page — no canvas libraries, no headless browser in your app.

🔭 Staging vs production monitoring

Capture both environments on a schedule and eyeball (or pixel-diff) the pair to catch layout breaks, font fallbacks, and missing assets before users do.

⚙️ CI/CD & scheduled jobs

Capture pre- and post-deploy from your pipeline, archive a visual record of every release, or thumbnail user-submitted URLs — all from a cron or a build step.

Four recipes worth stealing

CI visual checks. Add one job after deploy: capture your five most important pages and diff them against the previous run (ImageMagick's compare or pixelmatch is plenty). A broken stylesheet or a missing webfont shows up as a big red diff — before a user files the bug. Start with the homepage, pricing, and checkout; expand once the job proves itself.

Responsive breakpoints. Request the same URL in desktop, tablet, and mobile modes (or exact widths like 1440 / 768 / 390 with custom sizing) and stack the results side by side. Overflowing nav bars and squished grids are obvious in seconds — much faster than dragging DevTools narrower on every page by hand.

Dark-mode audits. If your app exposes its theme via a query param or a themed URL, capture the light and dark variants in the same run. Gray-on-gray text and stray white panels are the classic dark-mode regressions — a pair of screenshots catches them instantly.

PR review screenshots. Have your pipeline capture the preview-deploy URL (Vercel, Netlify, or your own staging) and post the image as a PR comment. Reviewers see what changed without checking out the branch, and the thread keeps a visual record of every iteration.