@sparticuz/chromium
Advanced tools
@sparticuz/chromium is an npm package that provides a pre-compiled version of Chromium, which is optimized for AWS Lambda and other serverless environments. It allows you to run headless Chromium in environments where installing Chromium from scratch would be impractical or impossible.
Launching Headless Chromium
This code demonstrates how to launch a headless Chromium browser using Puppeteer and the @sparticuz/chromium package. It navigates to a webpage and prints the title.
const chromium = require('@sparticuz/chromium');
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath(),
args: chromium.args,
defaultViewport: chromium.defaultViewport,
headless: chromium.headless,
});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');
console.log(await page.title());
await browser.close();
})();Taking Screenshots
This code demonstrates how to take a screenshot of a webpage using Puppeteer and the @sparticuz/chromium package. The screenshot is saved as 'example.png'.
const chromium = require('@sparticuz/chromium');
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath(),
args: chromium.args,
defaultViewport: chromium.defaultViewport,
headless: chromium.headless,
});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');
await page.screenshot({ path: 'example.png' });
await browser.close();
})();PDF Generation
This code demonstrates how to generate a PDF of a webpage using Puppeteer and the @sparticuz/chromium package. The PDF is saved as 'example.pdf'.
const chromium = require('@sparticuz/chromium');
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath(),
args: chromium.args,
defaultViewport: chromium.defaultViewport,
headless: chromium.headless,
});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');
await page.pdf({ path: 'example.pdf', format: 'A4' });
await browser.close();
})();Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. It is not specifically optimized for serverless environments like @sparticuz/chromium, but it is widely used for web scraping, automated testing, and other browser automation tasks.
chrome-aws-lambda is a package that provides a pre-compiled version of Chromium specifically for AWS Lambda. It is very similar to @sparticuz/chromium in terms of functionality and use cases, but it is more focused on AWS Lambda environments.
Playwright is a Node library to automate Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit with a single API. It is similar to Puppeteer but supports multiple browsers. It is not specifically optimized for serverless environments but offers extensive browser automation capabilities.
sparticuz/chrome-aws-lambda was originally forked from alixaxel/chrome-aws-lambda#264.
The biggest difference, besides the chromium version, is the inclusion of some code from https://github.com/alixaxel/lambdafs, as well as dropping that as a dependency. Due to some changes in WebGL, the files in bin/swiftshader.tar.br need to be extracted to /tmp instead of /tmp/swiftshader. This necessitated changes in lambdafs.
However, it quickly became difficult to maintain because of the pace of puppeteer updates. This package, @sparticuz/chromium, is not chained to puppeteer versions, but also does not include the overrides and hooks that the original package contained. It is only chromium, as well as the special code needed to decompress the brotli package, and a set of predefined arguments tailored to serverless usage.
puppeteer ships with a preferred version of chromium. In order to figure out what version of @sparticuz/chromium you will need, please visit Puppeteer's Chromium Support page.
For example, as of today, the latest version of
puppeteeris18.0.5. The latest version ofchromiumstated onpuppeteer's support page is106.0.5249.0. So you need to install@sparticuz/chromium@106.
# Puppeteer or Playwright is a production dependency
npm install --save puppeteer-core@$PUPPETEER_VERSION
# @sparticuz/chromium can be a DEV dependency IF YOU ARE USING A LAYER, if you are not using a layer, use as a production dependency!
npm install --save-dev @sparticuz/chromium@$CHROMIUM_VERSION
If your vendor does not allow large deploys (chromium.br is 50+ MB), you'll need to host the chromium-v#-pack.tar separately and use the @sparticuz/chromium-min package.
npm install --save @sparticuz/chromium-min@$CHROMIUM_VERSION
If you wish to install an older version of Chromium, take a look at @sparticuz/chrome-aws-lambda or @alixaxel/chrome-aws-lambda.
The @sparticuz/chromium version schema is as follows:
MajorChromiumVersion.MinorChromiumIncrement.@Sparticuz/chromiumPatchLevel
Because this package follows Chromium's releases, it does NOT follow semantic versioning. Breaking changes can occur with the 'patch' level. Please check the release notes for information on breaking changes.
This package works with all the currently supported AWS Lambda Node.js runtimes out of the box.
const test = require("node:test");
const puppeteer = require("puppeteer-core");
const chromium = require("@sparticuz/chromium");
// Optional: If you'd like to use the legacy headless mode. "new" is the default.
chromium.setHeadlessMode = true;
// Optional: If you'd like to disable webgl, true is the default.
chromium.setGraphicsMode = false;
// Optional: Load any fonts you need. Open Sans is included by default in AWS Lambda instances
await chromium.font(
"https://raw.githack.com/googlei18n/noto-emoji/master/fonts/NotoColorEmoji.ttf"
);
test("Check the page title of example.com", async (t) => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
args: chromium.args,
defaultViewport: chromium.defaultViewport,
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath(),
headless: chromium.headless,
});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto("https://example.com");
const pageTitle = await page.title();
await browser.close();
assert.strictEqual(pageTitle, "Example Domain");
});
const test = require("node:test");
// Need to rename playwright's chromium object to something else
const { chromium: playwright } = require("playwright-core");
const chromium = require("@sparticuz/chromium");
test("Check the page title of example.com", async (t) => {
const browser = await playwright.launch({
args: chromium.args,
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath(),
headless: chromium.headless,
});
const context = await browser.newContext();
const page = await context.newPage();
await page.goto("https://example.com");
const pageTitle = await page.title();
await browser.close();
assert.strictEqual(pageTitle, "Example Domain");
});
You should allocate at least 512 MB of RAM to your instance, however 1600 MB (or more) is recommended.
The -min package DOES NOT include the chromium brotli files. There are a few instances where this is useful. Primarily, this is useful when your host has file size limits.
To use the -min package please install the @sparticuz/chromium-min package.
When using the -min package, you need to specify the location of the brotli files.
In this example, /opt/chromium contains all the brotli files
/opt
/chromium
/aws.tar.br
/chromium.br
/swiftshader.tar.br
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
args: chromium.args,
defaultViewport: chromium.defaultViewport,
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath("/opt/chromium"),
headless: chromium.headless,
});
In the following example, https://www.example.com/chromiumPack.tar contains all the brotli files. Generally, this would be a location on S3, or another very fast downloadable location, that is in close proximity to your function's execution location.
On the initial iteration, @sparticuz/chromium will download the pack tar file, untar the files to /tmp/chromium-pack, then will un-brotli the chromium binary to /tmp/chromium. The following iterations will see that /tmp/chromium exists and will use the already downloaded files.
The latest chromium-pack.tar file will be on the latest release.
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
args: chromium.args,
defaultViewport: chromium.defaultViewport,
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath(
"https://www.example.com/chromiumPack.tar"
),
headless: chromium.headless,
});
Here are some example projects and help with other services
This version of chromium is built using the headless.gn build variables, which does not appear to even include a GUI. Also, at this point, AWS Lambda 2 does not support a modern version of glibc, so this package does not include an ARM version yet, which means it will not work on any M Series Apple products. If you need to test your code using a headful or ARM version, please use your locally installed version of chromium/chrome, or you may use the puppeteer provided version.
npx @puppeteer/browsers install chromium@latest --path /tmp/localChromium
For more information on installing a specific version of chromium, checkout @puppeteer/browsers.
For example, you can set your code to use an ENV variable such as IS_LOCAL, then use if/else statements to direct puppeteer to the correct environment.
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
args: process.env.IS_LOCAL ? puppeteer.defaultArgs() : chromium.args,
defaultViewport: chromium.defaultViewport,
executablePath: process.env.IS_LOCAL
? "/tmp/localChromium/chromium/linux-1122391/chrome-linux/chrome"
: await chromium.executablePath(),
headless: process.env.IS_LOCAL ? false : chromium.headless,
});
Amazon's default Lambda base image is quite old at this point and does not support newer versions of glibc that chromium requires. When Amazon Linux 2023 comes to Lambda as the default base image, ARM support should be possible. Ref: https://github.com/Sparticuz/chrome-aws-lambda/pull/11, https://github.com/aws/aws-lambda-base-images/issues/59
headless_shell is a purpose built version of chromium specific for headless purposes. It does not include the GUI at all and only works via remote debugging connection. Ref: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/lkgr/headless/README.md, https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:headless/app/headless_shell.cc
From what I can tell, headless_shell does not seem to include support for the "new" headless mode.
Try marking this package as an external. Ref: https://webpack.js.org/configuration/externals/
The Amazon Linux 2 AWS Lambda runtime is not provisioned with any font faces.
Because of this, this package ships with Open Sans, which supports the following scripts:
To provision additional fonts, simply call the font() method with an absolute path or URL:
await chromium.font("/var/task/fonts/NotoColorEmoji.ttf");
// or
await chromium.font(
"https://raw.githack.com/googlei18n/noto-emoji/master/fonts/NotoColorEmoji.ttf"
);
Noto Color Emoji(or similar) is needed if you want to render emojis.
For URLs, it's recommended that you use a CDN, like raw.githack.com or gitcdn.xyz.
This method should be invoked before launching Chromium.
Alternatively, it's also possible to provision fonts via AWS Lambda Layers.
Simply create a directory named .fonts and place any font faces you want there:
.fonts
├── NotoColorEmoji.ttf
└── Roboto.ttf
Afterwards, you just need to ZIP the directory and upload it as a AWS Lambda Layer:
zip -9 --filesync --move --recurse-paths .fonts.zip .fonts/
By default, this package uses swiftshader/angle to do CPU acceleration for WebGL. This is the only known way to enable WebGL on a serverless platform. You can disable WebGL by setting chromium.setGraphiceMode = false; before launching Chromium. Disabling this will also skip the extract of the bin/swiftshader.tar.br file, which saves about a second of initial execution time. Disabling graphics is recommended if you know you are not using any WebGL.
| Method / Property | Returns | Description |
|---|---|---|
font(url) | Promise<string> | Provisions a custom font and returns its basename. |
args | Array<string> | Provides a list of recommended additional Chromium flags. |
defaultViewport | Object | Returns a sensible default viewport for serverless. |
executablePath(location?: string) | Promise<string> | Returns the path the Chromium binary was extracted to. |
setHeadlessMode | void | Sets the headless mode to either true or "new" |
headless | true | "new" | Returns true or "new" depending on what version of chrome's headless you are running |
setGraphicsMode | void | Sets the graphics mode to either true or false |
graphics | boolean | Returns a boolean depending on whether webgl is enabled or disabled |
To compile your own version of Chromium check the Ansible playbook instructions.
Lambda Layers is a convenient way to manage common dependencies between different Lambda Functions.
The following set of (Linux) commands will create a layer of this package:
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/sparticuz/chromium.git && \
cd chromium && \
make chromium.zip
The above will create a chromium.zip file, which can be uploaded to your Layers console. You can and should upload using the aws cli. (Replace the variables with your own values)
bucketName="chromiumUploadBucket" && \
versionNumber="107" && \
aws s3 cp chromium.zip "s3://${bucketName}/chromiumLayers/chromium${versionNumber}.zip" && \
aws lambda publish-layer-version --layer-name chromium --description "Chromium v${versionNumber}" --content "S3Bucket=${bucketName},S3Key=chromiumLayers/chromium${versionNumber}.zip" --compatible-runtimes nodejs --compatible-architectures x86_64
Alternatively, you can also download the layer artifact from one of our releases.
According to our benchmarks, it's 40% to 50% faster than using the off-the-shelf puppeteer bundle.
chrome-aws-lambda@sparticuz/chromiumpuppeteer-corepuppeteer.launch() functionexecutablePath to be a function.-const chromium = require('@sparticuz/chrome-aws-lambda');
+const chromium = require("@sparticuz/chromium");
+const puppeteer = require("puppeteer-core");
exports.handler = async (event, context, callback) => {
let result = null;
let browser = null;
try {
- browser = await chromium.puppeteer.launch({
+ browser = await puppeteer.launch({
args: chromium.args,
defaultViewport: chromium.defaultViewport,
- executablePath: await chromium.executablePath,
+ executablePath: await chromium.executablePath(),
headless: chromium.headless,
ignoreHTTPSErrors: true,
});
let page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto(event.url || 'https://example.com');
result = await page.title();
} catch (error) {
return callback(error);
} finally {
if (browser !== null) {
await browser.close();
}
}
return callback(null, result);
};
The Chromium binary is compressed using the Brotli algorithm.
This allows us to get the best compression ratio and faster decompression times.
| File | Algorithm | Level | Bytes | MiB | % | Inflation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
chromium | - | - | 136964856 | 130.62 | - | - |
chromium.gz | Gzip | 1 | 51662087 | 49.27 | 62.28% | 1.035s |
chromium.gz | Gzip | 2 | 50438352 | 48.10 | 63.17% | 1.016s |
chromium.gz | Gzip | 3 | 49428459 | 47.14 | 63.91% | 0.968s |
chromium.gz | Gzip | 4 | 47873978 | 45.66 | 65.05% | 0.950s |
chromium.gz | Gzip | 5 | 46929422 | 44.76 | 65.74% | 0.938s |
chromium.gz | Gzip | 6 | 46522529 | 44.37 | 66.03% | 0.919s |
chromium.gz | Gzip | 7 | 46406406 | 44.26 | 66.12% | 0.917s |
chromium.gz | Gzip | 8 | 46297917 | 44.15 | 66.20% | 0.916s |
chromium.gz | Gzip | 9 | 46270972 | 44.13 | 66.22% | 0.968s |
chromium.gz | Zopfli | 10 | 45089161 | 43.00 | 67.08% | 0.919s |
chromium.gz | Zopfli | 20 | 45085868 | 43.00 | 67.08% | 0.919s |
chromium.gz | Zopfli | 30 | 45085003 | 43.00 | 67.08% | 0.925s |
chromium.gz | Zopfli | 40 | 45084328 | 43.00 | 67.08% | 0.921s |
chromium.gz | Zopfli | 50 | 45084098 | 43.00 | 67.08% | 0.935s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 0 | 55401211 | 52.83 | 59.55% | 0.778s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 1 | 54429523 | 51.91 | 60.26% | 0.757s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 2 | 46436126 | 44.28 | 66.10% | 0.659s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 3 | 46122033 | 43.99 | 66.33% | 0.616s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 4 | 45050239 | 42.96 | 67.11% | 0.692s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 5 | 40813510 | 38.92 | 70.20% | 0.598s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 6 | 40116951 | 38.26 | 70.71% | 0.601s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 7 | 39302281 | 37.48 | 71.30% | 0.615s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 8 | 39038303 | 37.23 | 71.50% | 0.668s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 9 | 38853994 | 37.05 | 71.63% | 0.673s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 10 | 36090087 | 34.42 | 73.65% | 0.765s |
chromium.br | Brotli | 11 | 34820408 | 33.21 | 74.58% | 0.712s |
MIT
FAQs
Chromium Binary for Serverless Platforms
The npm package @sparticuz/chromium receives a total of 151,958 weekly downloads. As such, @sparticuz/chromium popularity was classified as popular.
We found that @sparticuz/chromium demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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