Website monitoring screenshots API
Capture scheduled, full-page screenshots of any URL to track visual changes over time and catch regressions before your users do.
Visual monitoring — watching a page for unexpected changes or layout breaks — comes down to taking the same screenshot on a schedule and comparing over time. The hard part is running and scaling the browser that does it reliably.
Rendershot captures any URL on demand or on a cron schedule, returns full-page PNGs, and can fire a webhook when each render completes — so you can diff the latest capture against the last and alert on changes. It also handles pages behind a login via cookies, headers, or basic auth.
Capture a full-page screenshot of any URL:
curl -X POST https://api.rendershot.io/v1/screenshot \
-H 'X-API-Key: sk_live_...' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"url":"https://yoursite.com/pricing","full_page":true,"format":"png"}' \
--output pricing.pngScheduled captures
Run recurring screenshots on a cron schedule — hourly, daily, weekly — with no infra of your own.
Full-page rendering
Capture the entire scrollable page on real Chromium so you diff what users actually see.
Webhooks on completion
Get a signed push event with a ready-to-download URL when each render finishes, to feed your diff pipeline.
Authenticated pages
Monitor dashboards and internal tools by passing cookies, headers, or basic auth.
Consistent viewport
Pin width, height, and device scale so captures are comparable run to run.
No browser fleet
No headless Chromium to keep alive — captures run on Rendershot's workers.
FAQ
How do I monitor a website for visual changes?
Capture the page on a schedule with Rendershot (cron-based scheduled captures), store each full-page screenshot, and compare the latest against the previous one. Trigger your diff/alert pipeline from the completion webhook.
Can I screenshot pages behind a login?
Yes. Pass cookies, custom headers, or basic auth with the request and Rendershot renders the authenticated page — useful for monitoring dashboards and internal tools.
How often can captures run?
As often as your plan's rate limit allows. Scheduled captures support cron expressions for hourly, daily, or weekly monitoring without you running any infrastructure.
Is there a free tier?
Yes — 200 renders per month free, no credit card, enough to set up a small monitoring loop.
Start rendering in minutes
Free plan includes 200 renders/month. No credit card required.
Start for free →