You want a record of how your site, a competitor's site or a pricing page looks over time. Today that depends on someone remembering to open it and take a screenshot. shot-scraper is a command-line tool that takes website screenshots, saves pages as PDF or HTML, records scripted demo videos and pulls data out with JavaScript, so you can schedule it to run on its own.
Who this is NOT for
If you only need a screenshot now and then, use your computer's screenshot key; installing this is not worth it. If you have never opened a terminal and have no GitHub account, do not start here: everything runs on commands. And if you want to record yourself explaining something on screen, this is not it: its videos are built from a script of actions (click, type, scroll) and do not record what you do.
Its value is not taking a screenshot; anyone can do that. It is taking the same screenshot every day without anyone remembering to. The README examples show this: a bot that archives newspaper homepages, and Reuters' dashboards for its newsletters. The usual mistake is installing it for a one-off and dropping it. Bring it in when you have a page you want to watch consistently. Simon Willison has maintained it since 2022 and the last push was on Sep 24, 2026, so it is still alive. It also documents how to capture sites that require a login.
Your first step
Run pip install shot-scraper, then shot-scraper install, then shot-scraper https://yoursite.com (use your own site's address). Put the image it creates in a folder called "history": it is the first entry in your archive.
The shot-scraper implementation guide
The project belongs to Simon Willison (simonw) and it is free: the link beside asks for nothing. The guide to set it up without getting lost is ours: step by step, common mistakes and a checklist. Leave your email and we will send it.
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