I Needed a Free Screenshot API — So I Built One

Most screenshot APIs start free but paywall the features you actually need. Dark mode? Premium. WebP format? Enterprise. Ad blocking? Add-on. I know because I evaluated them all. The Problem I'm building a website monitoring platform. I need screenshots of web pages — lots of them. The requirements seemed simple: Capture any URL as an image Support dark mode (for dashboards) Output WebP (49% smaller than PNG) Block cookie banners and ads Free tier for development Here's what I found: Service Free Tier Dark Mode WebP Ad Blocking ScreenshotOne 100/mo ✅ ✅ ✅ Urlbox 7-day trial ❌ ✅ ❌ Screenshotapi.net 100/mo ❌ ❌ ❌ ApiFlash 100/mo ❌ ❌ ❌ Hermes Screenshot 5/min (unlimited) ✅ ✅ ✅ The commercial APIs charge $29-99/month for plans that include all four features. The free tiers are limited to 100 screenshots per month — fine for testing, but not for a production monitoring system. What I Built A screenshot API that runs on real Chromium via Playwright. Here's what a basic call looks like: curl "h