Why Choose
Urlbox vs URL2PNG?

URL2PNG was the first good screenshot API. It set the bar when it launched in 2010. Urlbox is the website screenshot alternative to URL2PNG that's never stopped improving.

We’re profitable, privately owned, and we're in this for the long haul. Since 2012, we’ve generated hundreds of millions of screenshots for companies of all sizes

Other solutions would fail under load or go offline and you wouldn't be able to reach them as their support was unresponsive. We've chosen Chris and the Urlbox team to be our experts and they provide us—and thus our customers—with accurate & fast screenshots at a terrific price.

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Swiped.co

There are so many screenshot services out there. They're fine if you're just doing thumbnails, you don't really care about quality or configuration options. It didn't take me long to find holes and hit the limitations of every one I tried. Urlbox has every feature I've ever needed to take great screenshots every time.

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Mike Schauer
Mike Schauer // Founder, Swiped.co

PHP

New Jersey, United States

URL2PNG was the first good screenshot API.
Urlbox has been focused on being the best since 2012

Urlbox's HTML to image conversion is considered the most accurate and high quality of any screenshot service.

The Urlbox team sweats the small stuff, ensuring that fonts and emojis render correctly. They cringe with you at full page website screenshots with repeating scrollbars and ugly horizontal seams. URL2PNG struggles to handle newer CSS features such as Flexbox, Grid and slower loading WebGL pages.

Urlbox is the screenshot API of choice for companies big and small.

So what sets Urlbox apart from URL2PNG?

Here are six ways that Urlbox outperforms URL2PNG:

A better way to take screenshots.

Retina Images

Render high quality, high-DPI images that look great on retina screens

Block Pop-ups

Stop annoying pop-ups getting in the way of your screenshots

Click Accept

Automatically dismiss cookie banners to prevent them spoiling your screenshots

Block Ads

Prevent ads taking all the attention in your screenshots

Bypass Captchas

Automatically attempt to solve and bypass any captchas that are shown

Bring Your Own Proxy

Use a proxy server to prevent sites from blocking your screenshots

It would have been so cumbersome to implement a service of our own to take screenshots. Urlbox's API is so straightforward, and the live preview is cool. I can play around with the parameters and see it do what I need it to do.

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Matthias Wagner
Matthias Wagner // CEO, Flux

JavaScript

California, United States

URL2PNG's experience looks and feels dated

Urlbox keeps their dashboard and documentation fresh

Choose your render mode

With Urlbox you can preview all available API options and check API usage on a modern dashboard

With URL2PNG, you'll feel like you've stepped into a computer history museum

Screenshot API render mode

More output formats

With Urlbox, you can render screenshots as PNG, JPEG, WEBP, AVIF, SVG, PDF, and even HTML

With URL2PNG you can render in...
PNG

Output format

Delay settings

With Urlbox, you can ensure a screenshot is only taken when a certain element is either in the DOM, or has left the DOM. Very useful if a web page has lazy loading, and you want to make sure spinners are gone before generating a screenshot

With URL2PNG the burden is on the page you're screenshotting to "Say Cheese!"

Delayed screenshot API

Request options

With Urlbox, you have all the power you need to set headers, proxies and user agents. You can even fail an API request if certain elements are present (or not present) in the DOM. That means they won't count against your monthly quota!

With URL2PNG you pay for just 10 options... regardless of whether or not they actually work

Output format

Exceptional support

Sadly, you'll hear many complaints about the level of support from URL2PNG.

Priority support really does mean priority support at Urlbox.

With Urlbox, you'll rarely have to wait for a whole business day - we'll usually get back to you within the hour!

ReviewTycoon

I love the support that Urlbox provides. Normally when I have a new feature request like WebP images or blocking cookie pop-ups, I email support and get a response saying it's already possible - within minutes.

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Rutger Tolenaar
Rutger Tolenaar // Founder, ReviewTycoon

PHP

Oegstgeest, the Netherlands

Urlbox's support of emojis was a big signal that it could replace our own service. It was a simple replacement - a real success story for us.

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Jānis Peisenieks
Jānis Peisenieks // Head of Engineering, Whimsical

Clojure

Riga, Latvia

We're in this for the long haul

Look up Urlbox's founder, Chris Roebuck, on LinkedIn.

While Urlbox is small and scrappy, you'll see he's been full-time on the business for over 5 years. Urlbox is proudly profitable. They plan to be in the screenshots business for the long term.

Too many customers have learned the hard way that the alternatives, including URL2PNG, seem like neglected side projects.

It's easy to switch from URL2PNG

Many of the options URL2PNG has are named the same with Urlbox. The only difference is in how you would generate the token; with URL2PNG you use the md5 hash, Urlbox use the hmac-sha256 method. So what are you waiting for?

Ready to start taking better screenshots?

Start your free trial now