How to Capture Screenshot of Website from URL using PHP

You can use the web page screenshot capture functions for numerous purposes in the web application. So, there are many third-party APIs that are accessible to take a screenshot of the website. But, if you wish to build your script to get a screenshot from URL, you can do it effortlessly by using PHP and Google PageSpeed Insights API.

Usually, Google PageSpeed Insights API is used to measure the performance of a web page. Therefore, you can also use Google PageSpeed Insights API to get a screenshot of the website from the URL. So, in this tutorial, we will show you how to capture a screenshot of the site from the URL with the help of Google PageSpeed Insights API and PHP.

The following example script takes a screenshot of the website by the URL and shows it as an image.

Get Screenshot of Website from URL

To make a web page snapshot, Firstly, you have to call Google PageSpeed Insights API with the following params.

• url:  Specify the URL of the website.
• screenshot:  stipulate screenshot=true to retrieve the screenshot data.

//website url
$siteURL = "http://www.allsweb.com/";

//call Google PageSpeed Insights API
$googlePagespeedData = file_get_contents("https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v2/runPagespeed?url=$siteURL&screenshot=true");

//decode json data
$googlePagespeedData = json_decode($googlePagespeedData, true);

//screenshot data
$screenshot = $googlePagespeedData['screenshot']['data'];
$screenshot = str_replace(array('_','-'),array('/','+'),$screenshot); 

//display screenshot image
echo "<img src=\"data:image/jpeg;base64,".$screenshot."\" />";

Capture Website Screenshot from URL

In this example script, we will explain how you can build a form to get a website screenshot by the URL given by the user and show the web page screenshot to the user.

HTML:

The HTML form below contains an input field that accepts the website’s URL. On the form, submit a site URL for the PHP script to take a screenshot of the website.

<form method="post" action="getScreenshot.php" >
<p>Website URL: <input type="text" name="url" value="" /></p>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="CAPTURE">
</form>

PHP (getScreenshot.php):

Before calling the call Google PageSpeed Insights API, Validate the submitted input value to check whether it is a valid URL. Retrieve the screenshot data from the Google PageSpeed Insights API, and show the screenshot image of the website.

<?php
if(!empty($_POST['url'])){
    //website url
    $siteURL = $_POST['url'];

    if(filter_var($siteURL, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL)){
        //call Google PageSpeed Insights API
        $googlePagespeedData = file_get_contents("https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v2/runPagespeed?url=$siteURL&screenshot=true");

        //decode json data
        $googlePagespeedData = json_decode($googlePagespeedData, true);

        //screenshot data
        $screenshot = $googlePagespeedData['screenshot']['data'];
        $screenshot = str_replace(array('_','-'),array('/','+'),$screenshot);

        //display screenshot image
        echo "<img src=\"data:image/jpeg;base64,".$screenshot."\" />";
    }else{
        echo "Please enter a valid URL.";
    }
}
?>

Also, read our previous blog- Pagination in PHP with MySQL