Headless node.js javascript browser with screenshot capability?

javascript browser node.js headless-browser
ryeguy picture ryeguy · Aug 18, 2011 · Viewed 17.2k times · Source

Are there any headless browsers for node.js that support dumping a rendered page out to a file? I know phantomjs supports rendering to a file, but it doesn't run on node.js. I know zombie.js is a node.js headless browser, but it doesn't support rendering to a file.

Answer

Peter Lyons picture Peter Lyons · Aug 20, 2011

I doubt you will find anything that is going to work as well as phantomjs. I would just treat the rendering as an async backend process and execute phantom in a subprocess from your main node.js process and call it a day. Rendering a web page is HARD, and since phantom is based on WebKit, it can actually do it. I don't think there will ever be a node library that can render a web page to a graphic file that isn't built upon an existing browser rendering engine. But maybe one day phantomjs will integrate more seamlessly with node.

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