comparison
Shotlane vs running Playwright or Puppeteer yourself
Playwright and Puppeteer are excellent and free. If your code already runs where Chrome can, you may not need Shotlane at all. Here's what changes when you don't have a browser, or don't want to own one.
| Playwright or Puppeteer | Shotlane | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Wherever you can install and run Chrome | Anywhere that can make an HTTP request: serverless, small containers, ChatGPT and Claude |
| Setup | Install ~300 MB of browsers, keep them patched, tune memory | An API key |
| Cost | Free, plus servers and your time | 100 renders a month free; $1.98–$4.50 per 1,000 after |
| Cookie banners, ads, popups | Write and maintain your own rules | hide_cookie_banners, block_ads, hide_popups |
| Full pages with lazy images | Scroll scripts and size limits yourself | full_page scrolls first and caps the size safely |
| Untrusted URLs | You handle sandboxing and SSRF protection | Sandboxed browser, private networks blocked |
| PDFs, Markdown, videos | page.pdf(); Markdown and video need more libraries | /v1/pdf, /v1/markdown, /v1/animate |
| AI agents | Playwright MCP needs a local browser | Remote MCP server that works in ChatGPT and Claude |
| Control | Total: any script, any flow, any volume | Options per request: click, hover, JS, cookies, waits |
Playwright and Puppeteer are open-source projects by Microsoft and Google; Shotlane itself runs on Playwright and Chromium.
When Playwright or Puppeteer is the better choice
Run it yourself if your code already runs next to a browser, you need full control over long multi-step flows like end-to-end tests, or you render millions of pages a month and have the people to run the infrastructure.
When Shotlane is the better choice
Use Shotlane when there's no browser where your code runs (serverless functions, chat agents, quick scripts and no-code tools), or when you'd rather not own sandboxing, patching, cookie banners and memory limits for a few thousand renders a month.
Switching takes minutes
Shotlane is a plain HTTP API: GET /v1/screenshot?url=…, /v1/pdf or /v1/markdown with your key in a header. Common options (full_page, width, format, selector, dark_mode, delay, block_ads, hide_cookie_banners) work the way you'd expect. See the API reference.
curl "https://shotlane.dev/v1/screenshot?url=example.com&full_page=true&format=webp" \ -H "X-API-Key: $SHOTLANE_API_KEY" -o example.webp
Try it free
You get 100 free renders a month and no card is needed. If it works for you, a $9 pack lasts until you use it up.
100 free renders a month · no credit card · key shown instantly