Headless browser API: Self-hosted vs managed, when each makes sense

Headless browser API: Self-hosted vs managed, when each makes sense You need to automate browser tasks — screenshots, PDFs, form fills, testing. You have two paths: Self-hosted — Run Puppeteer/Playwright on your servers Hosted API — Call a managed headless browser service Each has tradeoffs. Most teams pick wrong and regret it. The self-hosted trap Self-hosting a headless browser sounds simple: npm install puppeteer , write a script, deploy. In reality: // This looks easy... const browser = await puppeteer . launch (); const page = await browser . newPage (); await page . goto ( ' https://example.com ' ); const screenshot = await page . screenshot (); But production is messy. Hidden costs of self-hosting Infrastructure Each browser instance needs 300-500MB RAM 10 concurrent requests = 3-5GB RAM minimum Add margin for spikes = you need 8GB+ instance EC2 instance: $50-150/month just for browser capacity Orchestration Browser pools fail silently Connection timeouts need retry logic Memory