How I chose a screenshot api for Swipekit

Swipekit recently tackled a feature where we'd show a screenshot of the Ad's landing page. This is great since you don't need to manually go to the landing page and analyse it. You can see it right inside Swipekit!

But anyhow, when it came to fleshing out this feature, I wanted to use an external api since this would mean saving time(so I can work on other things) and use a solid screenshot service which covers all edge cases.

Prerequisites

Before I head off, this screenshot api should fulfill 3 critical criteries:

• Be able to render relatively fancy landing pages. Exhibit A, exhibit B & exhibit C
• Be able to resize renders for both large desktop sizes and mobile sizes
• Bonus : be able to remove cookie banners, popups, etc.

URL2PNG

This screenshot service came in highly recommended as its been around since a long time and there are raving customer reviews.

Unfortunately this service turned out to be quite crappy. No trial available, api sucks, and I can attest that the api has resizing problems. No point testing anything else.

Next!

Screenshotone

I found this through twitter. Seems like a nice tool, came with a lot of features and the founder seems quite active so I gave this a try.

Yup, everything worked as intended. Banners can be removed, images are sharp and can be resized properly, works on js heavy sites.

Let's keep this aside for now.

Urlbox

I found this one through twitter too. This one seems like a more mature version of screenshot one.

Has a very similar feature set when compared to screenshot one. Also seems very robust. I gave this a try and it ticked off all my boxes.

Unfortunately, the price increase between their starter and next available plan is too big so I kept this aside.

Thumio

This service has an extremely generous free plan and their paid plan is cheap too. So I thought why not give it a spin.

Yeah, nope. It has some serious troubles rendering js heavy webpages. Pass!

Since it was so cheap I decided I'll pay for a month and see how I go. Oh boy, they don't have a cancellation form!

I emailed them to cancel my plan and they still charged me. So I'm in the process of fighting the charge with my bank. To everyone else reading, please avoid them at all costs!

Update: They did refund me eventually and apologised.

Conclusion

After testing all these services, I choose Screenshot one as it had reasonably priced plans. Next option would definitely be Urlbox.

Note that it isn't perfect, but it works in 90% of cases and is now the provider of crisp landing page screenshots you've seen on Swipekit!