Browshot vs Lightscreen

Browshot is a web service for taking real-time screenshots of live websites through a dashboard or API. It supports more than 30 virtual browsers, including mobile and desktop choices, and can capture screen or full-page views as well as thumbnails. Requested output can be PNG or JPEG, with specified viewport dimensions and thumbnail size and aspect ratio. Browshot uses real desktop and mobile browsers that support HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, image loading, and redirects. Its REST API uses an API key; open-source libraries are available for Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and C#, with Swagger specifications for generating other clients. Premium and private browsers can perform actions such as navigation, clicking, typing, JavaScript execution, and screenshots. Trackers can extract page values, and screenshots can be sent to Amazon S3 or hosted by Browshot over HTTPS. The free plan provides 100 screenshots per month with reduced browser and resolution choices and shared browsers. Paid plans start at $1 a month. Average screenshot completion, including page load, is about 15 seconds; pages taking over two minutes are aborted without charge for failed screenshots.

Lightscreen automates screenshot capture and saves and catalogs images on disk according to user preferences. It can run as a hidden background process and respond to global hotkeys, with six configurable capture actions. Users can resize or adjust the capture area, then review an image in a preview window with an integrated viewer. Captures can be named sequentially or with customizable date and time formats. For sharing, Lightscreen uploads to Imgur and compatible pomf clones; users can also add other compatible hosts manually. Imgur uploads are anonymous, and the help page describes account uploads as planned for a later version. Portable mode stores preferences in config.ini so settings can move with the installation. Lightscreen supports Windows and Linux, and the site lists version 2.5 with improvements to area capture and fixes for cursor capture, crashes, and SSL issues. Uploads may require OpenSSL support on either platform. The code is licensed under GNU General Public License version 2, and the listed Free plan costs nothing.