Screenshots

Browserbase enables screen view and full-screen screenshots using your desired browser automation framework. For optimal performance, we recommend using CDP (Chrome DevTools Protocol) sessions to capture screenshots, as this method is significantly faster than standard approaches.

Take a Screenshot

First, create a browser session and connect to it using your preferred framework. Then you can take a screenshot using CDP sessions for the best performance:

Node.js

Playwright

import { writeFileSync } from "fs";
import { chromium } from "playwright-core";
import { Browserbase } from "@browserbasehq/sdk";

(async () => {
  console.log("Starting remote browser...");
  const bb = new Browserbase({ apiKey: process.env.BROWSERBASE_API_KEY });
  const session = await bb.sessions.create({
    projectId: process.env.BROWSERBASE_PROJECT_ID,
  });

  const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(session.connectUrl);
  const defaultContext = browser.contexts()[0];
  const page = defaultContext.pages()[0];

  await page.goto("https://news.ycombinator.com");

  console.log("Taking a screenshot using CDP...");

  // Create a CDP session for faster screenshots
  const client = await defaultContext.newCDPSession(page);

  // Capture the screenshot using CDP
  const { data } = await client.send("Page.captureScreenshot", {
    format: "jpeg",
    quality: 80,
    fullpage: true,
  });

  // Convert base64 to buffer and save
  const buffer = Buffer.from(data, "base64");
  writeFileSync("screenshot.jpeg", buffer);

  console.log("Shutting down...");
  await page.close();
  await browser.close();
})().catch((error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

Python

Playwright

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright, Playwright
import os
import base64
from browserbase import Browserbase

def main(p: Playwright):
    print("Starting remote browser...")
    bb = Browserbase(api_key=os.environ["BROWSERBASE_API_KEY"])
    session = bb.sessions.create(project_id=os.environ["BROWSERBASE_PROJECT_ID"])

    browser = p.chromium.connect_over_cdp(session.connect_url)
    context = browser.new_context()
    page = context.new_page()

    page.goto("https://news.ycombinator.com/")

    print("Taking a screenshot using CDP!")

    # Create a CDP session for faster screenshots
    client = context.new_cdp_session(page)

    # Capture the screenshot using CDP
    screenshot_data = client.send("Page.captureScreenshot", {
        "format": "jpeg",
        "quality": 80,
        "fullpage": True
    })

    # Convert base64 to bytes and save
    image_data = base64.b64decode(screenshot_data['data'])
    with open('screenshot.jpeg', 'wb') as f:
        f.write(image_data)

    print("Shutting down...")
    browser.close()

with sync_playwright() as playwright:
    main(playwright)

CDP Screenshot Reference

Just the CDP screenshot code:

TypeScript

Playwright

// Create CDP session
const client = await defaultContext.newCDPSession(page);

// Capture screenshot
const { data } = await client.send("Page.captureScreenshot", {
  format: "jpeg",
  quality: 80,
  fullpage: true,
});

// Save
const buffer = Buffer.from(data, "base64");
writeFileSync("screenshot.jpeg", buffer);

Python

Playwright

# Create CDP session
client = context.new_cdp_session(page)

# Capture screenshot
screenshot_data = client.send("Page.captureScreenshot", {
    "format": "jpeg",
    "quality": 80,
    "fullpage": True
})

# Save
image_data = base64.b64decode(screenshot_data['data'])
with open('screenshot.jpeg', 'wb') as f:
    f.write(image_data)

Why use CDP for screenshots?

Using CDP (Chrome DevTools Protocol) for taking screenshots offers several advantages:

1. Performance: CDP screenshots are significantly faster than traditional methods
2. Memory Efficiency: Uses less memory as it directly communicates with the browser’s debugging protocol
3. Quality Control: Provides more control over image quality and format settings
4. Reliability: More stable for full-page screenshots of complex web applications

For most use cases, we recommend using the CDP approach shown above rather than the standard screenshot methods.