Taking website screenshot, server-side, on a Linux rented server, free

Question

Ok so, right now I can't really afford to pay for any service. I want to be able to take screenshots using my rented server, which is Linux based, and output them on the screen.

I know there are a lot of services that do this, but they usually have limits or watermarks, or you have to wait for your screenshot to be taken from the queue.

Is there any way to just take the screenshots myself and maybe later cache them or anything? I'm using PHP, but I'm not limited to it; I'm just on a Linux server so GD's appropriate functions wouldn't work. Help! :)

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 18 '11 at 22:07

10

PhantomJs is the solution

if(phantom.state.length === 0){
  phantom.state = '0_home';
  phantom.open('http://www.mini.de');
}
else if(phantom.state === '0_home'){
  phantom.viewportSize = {width: 800, height: 600};
  phantom.sleep(2000);
  phantom.render('home.png');
  phantom.exit(0);
}

answered Oct 18 '11 at 22:07

cromulus

116
1
2

1

I think phantomjs should work no problem. If webkit can render the page, phantomjs should be able to take a screenshot. – cromulus Nov 03 '11 at 20:20

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 27 '10 at 12:33

9

http://cutycapt.sourceforge.net/

CutyCapt is a small cross-platform command-line utility to capture WebKit's rendering of a web page into a variety of vector and bitmap formats, including SVG, PDF, PS, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, and BMP.

There is no PHP-api, but you can always use it through PHP's exec functions.

answered Jul 27 '10 at 12:33

Kirzilla

16,368
26
84
129

Think I'd be able to run it with a hosted server? – casraf Jul 29 '10 at 15:02
[Timthumb](http://code.google.com/p/timthumb/) provides access to cutycapt, which may help with the "no PHP-api" problem. – Nick Feb 28 '13 at 03:13

Brad · Answer 3 · 2012-04-25T23:19:29.043

5

Here is a better script using phantomJS 1.5

var page = require('webpage').create();

page.open('http://www.google.com', function() {

    page.viewportSize = {width: 1024, height: 768};
    page.render('screenshot.png');
    phantom.exit();
});

edited Apr 25 '12 at 23:19

answered Apr 19 '12 at 23:29

Brad

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2
7

2

Brad: you might need PhantomJS 1.5. On that version this worked fine with me. – Husky Apr 24 '12 at 19:08
You're right.. This will only work on version 1.5 Thanks for clarifying. – Brad Apr 25 '12 at 23:17

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 18 '17 at 01:46

One of the solutions in 2017:

https://github.com/GoogleChrome/puppeteer

example:

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

(async() => {

const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');
await page.screenshot({path: 'example.png'});

browser.close();
})();

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 29 '20 at 17:31

Since you have your own Linux server, the best way is to run your own screenshot service without limitation. Here is an easy solution to run it on your server: https://github.com/filovirid/screenshot_server

It creates an API so that you can access it from everywhere.

Taking website screenshot, server-side, on a Linux rented server, free

5 Answers5

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