Stop Fighting Puppeteer: Why a Managed Screenshot API Saves Hours

The Puppeteer Pain

If you've used Puppeteer in production, you know the drill:

• Memory leaks — Headless Chrome eats 200-500MB per instance. Pages that don't close properly accumulate. Your server runs out of RAM at 3 AM.
• Timeout errors — Navigation timeout of 30000 ms exceeded. Pages that redirect, load slowly, or trigger anti-bot measures fail silently.
• Chromium version hell — Each Puppeteer version requires a specific Chromium build. Docker images balloon to 1-2GB. ARM builds break randomly.
• Scaling is manual — Need 50 concurrent screenshots? You're building a browser pool, managing queues, and handling graceful shutdown yourself.
• Cookie banners and ads — You need custom CSS selectors for every consent framework. They change monthly. Your selectors break.
• Code bloat — A "simple" screenshot takes 30-50 lines of Puppeteer code. Viewport config, waiting strategies, error handling, resource cleanup.

The Same Screenshot: Puppeteer vs API

Puppeteer (30+ lines)

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

async function takeScreenshot(url) {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
    headless: 'new',
    args: ['--no-sandbox', '--disable-setuid-sandbox',
           '--disable-dev-shm-usage', '--disable-gpu'],
  });

  try {
    const page = await browser.newPage();
    await page.setViewport({ width: 1280, height: 720 });
    await page.emulateMediaFeatures([
      { name: 'prefers-color-scheme', value: 'dark' },
    ]);

    // Try to block cookie banners (fragile selectors)
    await page.evaluateOnNewDocument(() => {
      // ... 20 lines of banner-blocking CSS
    });

    await page.goto(url, {
      waitUntil: 'networkidle2',
      timeout: 30000,
    });

    const buffer = await page.screenshot({
      type: 'webp',
      quality: 90,
    });

    return buffer;
  } finally {
    await browser.close(); // Don't forget this or you leak memory
  }
}

PageBolt API (3 lines)

const res = await fetch('https://pagebolt.dev/api/v1/screenshot', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'x-api-key': KEY, 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    url: 'https://example.com',
    format: 'webp', darkMode: true, blockBanners: true,
  }),
});
const screenshot = Buffer.from(await res.arrayBuffer());

Same result. One API call. No browser management, no memory leaks, no dependency conflicts.

What a Managed API Handles for You

• Browser infrastructure — Pre-warmed browser pool, automatic scaling, zero cold starts
• Ad & banner blocking — Updated selectors for 50+ consent frameworks and ad networks
• Device emulation — 25+ presets (iPhone, iPad, MacBook, etc.) with one parameter
• Error handling — Automatic retries for redirects, timeouts, and transient failures
• Output styling — Window frames, gradient backgrounds, shadows — no image editing
• Video recording — Something Puppeteer simply can't do without hundreds of lines of code

When to Keep Puppeteer

Puppeteer still makes sense in specific scenarios:

• Complex browser automation — If you're building a full web scraper with custom logic, Puppeteer gives you total control
• Offline / air-gapped environments — If your code can't make external API calls
• Sub-millisecond latency requirements — If you need screenshots faster than a network round-trip allows
• Zero cost at massive scale — If you have spare server capacity and want to avoid per-request pricing

For everyone else — especially teams that need reliable screenshots without managing browser infrastructure — a managed API is the pragmatic choice.

Why PageBolt Over Other APIs

There are several managed screenshot APIs. PageBolt stands out because it's not just a screenshot API — it bundles 7 capabilities under one key:

1. Screenshots with 30+ parameters and 18 style themes
2. PDFs from URLs or HTML
3. OG images from templates or custom HTML
4. Video recording with cursor effects and voice narration
5. Browser sequences — multi-step automations
6. MCP server — use from AI coding assistants
7. CI/CD integration — auto-generate demos on PRs

Start free with 100 requests/month. Sign up at pagebolt.dev.