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Screenshot & web API alternatives

rasterly is one API for screenshot, HTML→PDF, read (URL→Markdown), extract (URL→JSON), crawl and change-monitoring — from $0.90 per 1,000. Below is an honest side-by-side with the tools people usually replace, plus a drop-in migration for each. Where a rival still wins, we say so.

The short version: most of these are a headless browser with a brand markup. rasterly reuses one browser across requests, so a warm render is ~1s of CPU — and we price on that. The request shape is close enough that switching is usually a hostname + key change. You keep your current vendor in parallel behind a flag and move over what proves stable.

Screenshot & PDF APIs

rasterly vs UrlboxSame URL→screenshot/PDF shape, a fraction of the bill. Urlbox still wins on templates & geo. rasterly vs ScreenshotOneCheaper per render + read/extract/crawl/monitor on the same key. rasterly vs ApiFlashLower price, same PNG/JPEG/PDF over one GET. rasterly vs SnapAPIOne API for capture plus read, extract, crawl and monitoring.

Scrape, read & crawl

rasterly vs Firecrawlread→Markdown, extract→JSON and crawl — plus screenshot, PDF and change-monitoring Firecrawl doesn't bundle. rasterly vs ScrapeGraphAIThey own deep LLM extraction and open source; rasterly adds the screenshots and PDF they don't do, at a flat price. rasterly vs ApifyApify is the deeper platform with proxies, actors and orchestration; rasterly is the simple per-URL render/read on one key.

Browser infrastructure

rasterly vs BrowserbaseIf you just need the render/extract, not a full remote browser to drive, rasterly is the cheaper stateless layer. rasterly vs BrowserlessA hosted render/scrape API instead of running your own headless fleet.

HTML → image

rasterly vs HTMLCSStoImageRender HTML to image or PDF, and screenshot live URLs too, on one key. rasterly vs MicrolinkScreenshots plus page metadata, folded onto read and extract on one key. rasterly vs Screenshot MachineThe same URL-to-image/PDF job, cost-priced, with read, extract and crawl alongside. rasterly vs Thum.ioSigned URL screenshots plus PDF, Markdown and JSON on the same key. rasterly vs BannerbearWhen the job is rendering URLs or your own HTML, not designing templates. rasterly vs PlacidRender live pages and your own HTML to image or PDF, without the template editor.
Not sure which you're replacing? If you pay per screenshot, start with Urlbox or ScreenshotOne. If you scrape for RAG, see Firecrawl. Either way there are 100 free renders and no card — grab a key and run your own URLs.