# Build brief — a focused alternative to ScreenshotOne

> **Verdict:** Partly, if you narrow it · **Buildability:** 41/100 · **Category:** Dev Tools
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/screenshotone
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from ScreenshotOne. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**ScreenshotOne** — Managed API for rendering websites, HTML, and Markdown as images or PDFs. It currently costs $17/mo.

A competent coding agent can build a useful self-hosted screenshot endpoint around Playwright in a contained effort. Matching ScreenshotOne's reliable browser fleet, proxy locations, stealth behavior, maintained blocking rules, videos, and production edge-case handling is a much larger infrastructure product.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of ScreenshotOne that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

Send a URL or HTML to an authenticated HTTP endpoint and receive a cached PNG, JPEG, WebP, or PDF rendered by a local Chrome/Chromium worker.

- Build the focused developer workflow you use repeatedly, with local configuration.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- Docker.
- A machine with enough memory to run Chrome/Chromium.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build me a self-hosted website screenshot API to replace ScreenshotOne for personal use. Requirements:

- Node 22 + Fastify + Playwright (Chromium) + better-sqlite3, one process, no queue system.
- GET /take?url=&format=png|jpeg|webp|pdf&width=&height=&full_page=&delay_ms= renders the
  page in a pooled Chromium context and returns the image bytes directly.
- POST /take accepts raw HTML or Markdown in the body and renders that instead
  (Markdown through marked into a plain template).
- Auth is one API key from .env, checked on every request; 401 without it.
- Cache by hash of the normalized options: metadata in SQLite, files under data/cache/,
  with a cache_ttl option and a fresh=true bypass.
- Block ads and cookie banners the honest way: load EasyList and the
  "I don't care about cookies" filter list at startup, apply them via request
  interception, plus a small CSS hide-list for common consent overlays. Do not
  promise it catches everything.
- Hard 15-second navigation timeout, one retry, then a JSON error with the reason;
  never a hanging request.
- Concurrency capped at a small context pool (default 2) with an in-memory queue,
  so the box does not fall over.
- Out of scope: proxies and IP locations, stealth evasion, scrolling video capture,
  GPU rendering, dashboards, usage billing. That fleet is the paid product.
- README: npx playwright install chromium, .env keys, Chromium memory expectations,
  and a one-line warning that hostile sites will beat this build.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- Managed browser capacity, rate limiting, and high availability.
- Maintained ad, cookie banner, chat widget, and popup blocking rules.
- Residential proxies, selectable IP locations, and stealth tuning.
- Scrolling screenshots, video generation, and GPU rendering.
- Reliability at the vendor's scale is an operations problem, not a prompt.
- The useful dataset is owned, accumulated, or expensive to reproduce.

## What you still own after launch

- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.

## Risk

**Operational risk.** The code is achievable; dependable data, integrations, and ongoing operations are the real cost.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: high. No independent one-shot implementation is linked yet.

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Generated by [Can It Be Vibe Coded?](https://www.canitbevibecoded.com) · Full report: https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/screenshotone