Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Browsershots VS puppeteer

Compare Browsershots VS puppeteer and see what are their differences

Browsershots logo Browsershots

Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers.

puppeteer logo puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome or Chromium...
  • Browsershots Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-15
  • puppeteer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-02

Browsershots features and specs

  • Wide Browser Coverage
    Browsershots supports a large variety of browsers across different operating systems, making it easier for developers to see how their website looks in multiple scenarios.
  • Free to Use
    The service offers a free version which allows users to test their websites in numerous browsers without any cost.
  • Screenshot Capability
    It provides screenshots of how websites are rendered in different browsers, enabling developers to quickly identify rendering issues.
  • No Installation Required
    As a web-based tool, Browsershots doesn't require any software installation, making it easily accessible from any machine with an internet connection.

Possible disadvantages of Browsershots

  • Limited Interactivity
    Being a screenshot service, it doesn't support interactive testing, such as click events or navigation within the website.
  • Queue Times
    During peak times, there can be significant delays in getting screenshots due to the queuing system, especially for free users.
  • Outdated Browsers
    Some of the browsers offered for testing are outdated, which may not be useful for modern web development needs.
  • No Real-time Testing
    The service does not offer real-time testing capabilities, which means developers cannot debug issues immediately as they would in a local development environment.

puppeteer features and specs

  • Headless Browsing
    Puppeteer allows headless browsing, which means you can automate and test web applications without opening a browser user interface, resulting in faster execution and lower resource usage.
  • Full Browser Control
    Enables full control over Chrome or Chromium browsers, allowing for comprehensive browser testing and automation, including taking screenshots, generating PDFs, and capturing web pages.
  • Rich API
    Offers a rich set of APIs that can control browsers, manage cookies, intercept network requests, and handle various browser events, making it versatile for different use cases.
  • Active Community
    Highly active open-source community with regular updates and a plethora of plugins and extensions, providing robust support and continuous improvements.
  • Compatibility
    Supports the latest JavaScript features and works seamlessly with popular libraries and frameworks, providing a modern development experience.

Possible disadvantages of puppeteer

  • Restricted to Chrome/Chromium
    Puppeteer is primarily designed to work with Chrome and Chromium browsers, limiting cross-browser testing capabilities compared to other tools that support multiple browsers.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running multiple instances of headless browsers can be resource-intensive in terms of CPU and memory usage, potentially affecting performance on limited hardware.
  • Learning Curve
    Requires some learning curve for developers unfamiliar with browser automation or the Puppeteer API, making initial setup and usage potentially time-consuming.
  • Lacks JavaScript Redaction
    Unlike some other tools, Puppeteer does not natively support JavaScript error redaction, which means developers must manage error handling and debugging themselves.
  • Not Ideal for GUI Tests
    Since Puppeteer is headless by default, it might not be ideal for GUI end-to-end tests that require visual validation, requiring additional tools or configurations to enable full browser displays.

Browsershots videos

Browsershots.org behind the scenes

puppeteer videos

Puppeteer - Video Review

More videos:

  • Review - GameSpot Reviews - Puppeteer
  • Review - CGR Undertow - PUPPETEER review for PlayStation 3

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Browsershots and puppeteer)
Website Testing
100 100%
0% 0
Automated Testing
20 20%
80% 80
Browser Testing
36 36%
64% 64
Browser Automation
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Browsershots and puppeteer

Browsershots Reviews

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puppeteer Reviews

Top Selenium Alternatives
Puppeteer offers more direct and tighter integration with Chrome or Chromium through the DevTools Protocol, unlike Selenium which abstracts the browser interaction through WebDriver, making it more versatile across different browsers but potentially less optimized for specific browser internals like those Puppeteer accesses in Chrome.
Source: bugbug.io
Best Data Scraping Tools
It is completely free. Puppeteer is well backed and supported by Google Chrome and hence replacing Selenium and PhantomJS. It automatically installs an efficient, compatible Chromium binary in its setup, therefore reducing the burden of keeping track on your browser.
Puppeteer vs Selenium
If you're looking for a better alternative, try Endtest. It has Puppeteer's speed, it supports Selenium's browsers AND it has all the features that they're missing.
Source: dev.to
Introduction to Headless Browser Testing
The Puppeteer API can be used to take screenshots, create PDFs, navigate pages, and fetch information from pages. We’ll write some example code to see Puppeteer in action.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, puppeteer seems to be a lot more popular than Browsershots. While we know about 106 links to puppeteer, we've tracked only 2 mentions of Browsershots. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Browsershots mentions (2)

puppeteer mentions (106)

  • Top React Testing Libraries in 2025
    Puppeteer is a headless browser automation tool built on Chromium. It allows developers to simulate user interactions, capture screenshots, and perform UI tests with a high degree of accuracy. Puppeteer is particularly useful for testing cross-browser compatibility and visual elements in React applications. Its robust API enables precise control over browser actions, making it a valuable tool for UI testing and... - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • End-to-End SEO Testing with Playwright and Lighthouse
    Vitest is a next-generation JavaScript testing framework powered by Vite. It’s an excellent alternative to Jest, offering native TypeScript support, a fast setup, and solid performance. However, while it has an experimental headless browser, it’s not ideal for advanced scenarios like running SEO audits in CI/CD pipelines. Instead, we can pair Vitest with Pupetter, a more mature tool for headless browser automation. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • The Puppeteer Language Experiment
    This project tests how the browser language can be changed with Puppeteer. It implements multiple options to set the language of Chrome and checks each option against BrowserLeaks to see how it affected the JavaScript proeprties and HTTP headers available by the browser. For more information, see my article The Puppeteer Language Experiment on DEV.to. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Scrapy Vs. Crawlee
    In Crawlee, you can scrape JavaScript rendered websites using the built-in headless Puppeteer and Playwright browsers. It is important to note that, by default, Crawlee scrapes in headless mode. If you don't want headless, then just set headless: false. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Sometimes things simply don't work
    I am not in any way associated with the developers at puppeteer, but if you are looking for a way to contribute, they are open source. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Browsershots and puppeteer, you can also consider the following products

browserling - Live interactive cross-browser testing from your browser.

Selenium - Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that.

Sauce Labs - Test mobile or web apps instantly across 700+ browser/OS/device platform combinations - without infrastructure setup.

Playwright - Playwright is automation software for Chromium, Firefox, Webkit using the Node.js library having a single API in place.

BrowserStack - BrowserStack is a software testing platform for developers to comprehensively test websites and mobile applications for quality.

Apify - Apify is a web scraping and automation platform that can turn any website into an API.