@sparticuz/chromium


Chromium for Serverless Platforms

sparticuz/chrome-aws-lambda was originally forked from alixaxel/chrome-aws-lambda#264.

The main difference, aside from the Chromium version, is the inclusion of some code from https://github.com/alixaxel/lambdafs, while removing it as a dependency. Due to changes in WebGL, the files in bin/swiftshader.tar.br must now be extracted to /tmp instead of /tmp/swiftshader. This required changes in lambdafs.

However, maintaining the package became difficult due to the rapid pace of puppeteer updates. @sparticuz/chromium is not tied to specific puppeteer versions and does not include the overrides and hooks found in the original package. It provides only Chromium, the code required to decompress the Brotli package, and a set of predefined arguments tailored for serverless environments.

Install

puppeteer ships with a preferred version of chromium. To determine which version of @sparticuz/chromium you need, visit the Puppeteer Chromium Support page.

> For example, as of today, the latest version of puppeteer is 18.0.5, and the latest supported version of Chromium is 106.0.5249.0. Therefore, you should install @sparticuz/chromium@106.

``shell


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 it as a production dependency!

npm install --save-dev @sparticuz/chromium@$CHROMIUM_VERSION
`

If your vendor does not allow large deployments (since chromium.br is over 50 MB), you will need to host the chromium-v#-pack.tar separately and use the @sparticuz/chromium-min package.

`shell
npm install --save @sparticuz/chromium-min@$CHROMIUM_VERSION
`

If you need to install an older version of Chromium, see @sparticuz/chrome-aws-lambda or @alixaxel/chrome-aws-lambda.

Versioning

The @sparticuz/chromium version schema is as follows:
MajorChromiumVersion.MinorChromiumIncrement.@Sparticuz/chromiumPatchLevel

Because this package follows Chromium's release cycle, it does NOT follow semantic versioning. Breaking changes may occur at the 'patch' level. Please check the release notes for details on breaking changes.

Usage

This package works with all currently supported AWS Lambda Node.js runtimes out of the box.

`javascript
const test = require("node:test");
const puppeteer = require("puppeteer-core");
const chromium = require("@sparticuz/chromium");

// Optional: If you'd like to disable webgl, true is the default.
chromium.setGraphicsMode = false;

test("Check the page title of example.com", async (t) => {
const viewport = {
deviceScaleFactor: 1,
hasTouch: false,
height: 1080,
isLandscape: true,
isMobile: false,
width: 1920,
};
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
args: puppeteer.defaultArgs({ args: chromium.args, headless: "shell" }),
defaultViewport: viewport,
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath(),
headless: "shell",
});

const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto("https://example.com");
const pageTitle = await page.title();
await browser.close();

t.assert.strictEqual(pageTitle, "Example Domain");
});
`

$3

`javascript
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, // Playwright merges the args
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath(),
// headless: true, / true is the default /
});

const context = await browser.newContext();
const page = await context.newPage();
await page.goto("https://example.com");
const pageTitle = await page.title();
await browser.close();

t.assert.strictEqual(pageTitle, "Example Domain");
});
`

You should allocate at least 512 MB of RAM to your instance; however, 1600 MB (or more) is recommended.

$3

The -min package does NOT include the Chromium Brotli files. This is useful when your host has file size limits.

To use the -min package, install the @sparticuz/chromium-min package instead of @sparticuz/chromium

When using the -min package, you must specify the location of the Brotli files.

In this example, /opt/chromium contains all the Brotli files:

`
/opt
/chromium
/al2023.tar.br
/chromium.br
/fonts.tar.br
/swiftshader.tar.br
`

`javascript
const viewport = {
deviceScaleFactor: 1,
hasTouch: false,
height: 1080,
isLandscape: true,
isMobile: false,
width: 1920,
};
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
args: puppeteer.defaultArgs({ args: chromium.args, headless: "shell" }),
defaultViewport: viewport,
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath("/opt/chromium"),
headless: "shell",
});
`

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 close to your function's execution environment.

On the first run, @sparticuz/chromium will download the pack tar file, untar the files to /tmp/chromium-pack, and then decompress the chromium binary to /tmp/chromium. Subsequent runs (during a warm start) will detect that /tmp/chromium exists and use the already downloaded files.

The latest chromium-pack.arch.tar file is available in the latest release.

`javascript
const viewport = {
deviceScaleFactor: 1,
hasTouch: false,
height: 1080,
isLandscape: true,
isMobile: false,
width: 1920,
};
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
args: puppeteer.defaultArgs({ args: chromium.args, headless: "shell" }),
defaultViewport: viewport,
executablePath: await chromium.executablePath(
"https://www.example.com/chromiumPack.tar"
),
headless: "shell",
});
`

$3

Here are some example projects and guides for other services:

- Production Dependency
- Serverless Framework with Lambda Layer
- Serverless Framework with Pre-existing Lambda Layer
- Chromium-min
- AWS SAM
- Webpack
- Netlify

$3

This version of Chromium is built using the headless.gn build variables, which do not include a GUI. If you need to test your code using a headful instance, use your locally installed version of Chromium/Chrome, or the version provided by Puppeteer.

`shell
npx @puppeteer/browsers install chromium@latest --path /tmp/localChromium
`

For more information on installing a specific version of chromium, check out @puppeteer/browsers.

For example, you can set your code to use an environment variable such as IS_LOCAL, then use if/else statements to direct Puppeteer to the correct environment.

`javascript
const viewport = {
deviceScaleFactor: 1,
hasTouch: false,
height: 1080,
isLandscape: true,
isMobile: false,
width: 1920,
};
const headlessType = process.env.IS_LOCAL ? false : "shell";
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
args: process.env.IS_LOCAL
? puppeteer.defaultArgs()
: puppeteer.defaultArgs({ args: chromium.args, headless: headlessType }),
defaultViewport: viewport,
executablePath: process.env.IS_LOCAL
? "/tmp/localChromium/chromium/linux-1122391/chrome-linux/chrome"
: await chromium.executablePath(),
headless: headlessType,
});
`

Frequently Asked Questions

$3

YES! Starting at Chromium v135, @sparticuz/chromium includes an arm64 pack.

$3

headless_shell is a purpose-built version of Chromium specifically for headless purposes. It does not include a GUI and only works via remote debugging connection. This is what this package is built on.

- https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/lkgr/headless/README.md
- https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:headless/app/headless_shell.cc
- https://developer.chrome.com/blog/chrome-headless-shell

$3

From what I can tell, headless_shell does not seem to include support for the "new" headless mode.

$3

Try marking this package as an external dependency.

- https://webpack.js.org/configuration/externals/

$3

This is a common issue. Chromium sometimes opens more pages than you expect. You can try the following:

`typescript
for (const page of await browser.pages()) {
await page.close();
}
await browser.close();
`

You can also try the following if one of the calls is hanging for some reason:

`typescript
await Promise.race([browser.close(), browser.close(), browser.close()]);
`

Always await browser.close(), even if your script is returning an error.

$3

You may not be able to create a new context. You can try to use the default context as seen in this patch: https://github.com/Sparticuz/chromium/issues/298

$3

This package is designed to be run on a vanilla Lambda instance. If you are using a Dockerfile to publish your code to Lambda, it may be better to install Chromium and its dependencies from the distribution's repositories.

$3

This is due to the way @sparticuz/chromium is built. If you require accessible PDFs, you'll need to
recompile Chromium yourself with the following patch. You can then use that binary with @sparticuz/chromium-min.

_Note_: This will increase the time required to generate a PDF.

`patch
diff --git a/_/ansible/plays/chromium.yml b/_/ansible/plays/chromium.yml
index b42c740..49111d7 100644
--- a/_/ansible/plays/chromium.yml
+++ b/_/ansible/plays/chromium.yml
@@ -249,8 +249,9 @@
blink_symbol_level = 0
dcheck_always_on = false
disable_histogram_support = false
- enable_basic_print_dialog = false
enable_basic_printing = true
+ enable_pdf = true
+ enable_tagged_pdf = true
enable_keystone_registration_framework = false
enable_linux_installer = false
enable_media_remoting = false
`

$3

Yes, you will need to write your own Brotli extraction algorithm and args inclusion. (Basically, rewrite the typescript files). The binaries, once extracted, will work with any language.

- C Sharp: https://github.com/Podginator/lambda-chromium-playwright-CSharp/tree/main

Fonts

The AWS Lambda runtime is not provisioned with any font faces.

Because of this, this package ships with Open Sans, which supports the following scripts:

- Latin
- Greek
- Cyrillic

You can provision additional fonts via AWS Lambda Layers.

Create a directory named .fonts or fonts and place any font faces you want there:

`
.fonts
├── NotoColorEmoji.ttf
└── Roboto.ttf
`

Afterwards, zip the directory and upload it as an AWS Lambda Layer:

`shell
zip -9 --filesync --move --recurse-paths fonts.zip fonts/
`

Font directories are specified inside the fonts.conf file found inside the bin/fonts.tar.br file. These are the default folders:

- /var/task/.fonts
- /var/task/fonts
- /opt/fonts
- /tmp/fonts

Graphics

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.setGraphicsMode = false; _before_ launching Chromium. Chromium still requires extracting the bin/swiftshader.tar.br file in order to launch. Testing is needed to determine if there is any positive speed impact from disabling WebGL.

API

| Method / Property | Returns | Description |
| ----------------------------------- | ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| args | Array | Provides a list of recommended additional Chromium flags. |
| executablePath(location?: string) | Promise | Returns the path where the Chromium binary was extracted. |
| setGraphicsMode | void | Sets the graphics mode to either true or false. |
| graphics | boolean | Returns a boolean indicating whether WebGL is enabled or disabled. |

Extra Args documentation

- Comparisons
- Puppeteer Default Args
- Playwright Default Args

Contributing

$3

> Note: For security reasons, we do not accept PRs that include updated binary files. Please submit the changes to build files only, and the maintainers will compile and update the binary files.

1. Run npm run update to update inventory.ini with the latest stable version of Chromium.
2. Make any necessary changes to the build-arch.yml file.
3. Make any necessary changes to inventory.ini.
4. Run the appropriate command from the Makefile. Use make build to compile both x64 and arm64 versions.
5. If compiling both architectures and al2023.tar.br has been modified, update the arm64 version by running make build-arm-libs.
6. Verify that the chromium-###.#.#.#.br files are valid.
7. Rename them to chromium.br.
8. If necessary, update the Open Sans font using npm run build:fonts.
9. Run tests on the new version of Chromium. (npm run test:source and npm run test:integration). Integration tests requires AWS SAM cli and docker installed.

$3

1. Edit any of the source files in source.
2. Create or update tests in tests.
3. Lint the package using npm run lint.
4. Build the package using npm run build.
5. Test the updates using npm run test:source.
6. Run a full integration test using npm run test:integration. This requires AWS SAM cli and docker installed.

AWS Lambda Layer

Lambda Layers are a convenient way to manage common dependencies between different Lambda Functions.

The following set of (Linux) commands will create a layer of this package:

`shell
archType="x64" && \
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/sparticuz/chromium.git && \
cd chromium && \
make chromium.${archType}$.zip
`

The above will create a chromium.x64.zip file, which can be uploaded to your Layers console. If you are using arm64, replace the value accordingly. You can and should upload using the aws cli. (Replace the variables with your own values.)

`shell
bucketName="chromiumUploadBucket" && archType="x64" && versionNumber="v135.0.0" && \
aws s3 cp chromium.${archType}.zip "s3://${bucketName}/chromiumLayers/chromium-${versionNumber}-layer.${archType}.zip" && \
aws lambda publish-layer-version --layer-name chromium --description "Chromium v${versionNumber} for ${archType}" --content "S3Bucket=${bucketName},S3Key=chromiumLayers/chromium-${versionNumber}-layer.${archType}.zip" --compatible-runtimes "nodejs20.x" "nodejs22.x" --compatible-architectures $(if [ "$archType" = "x64" ]; then echo "x86_64"; else echo "$archType"; fi)
`

Alternatively, you can also download the layer artifact from one of our releases.

Compression

The Chromium binary is compressed using the Brotli algorithm.

This provides 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 |

Backers

If you or your organization have benefited financially from this package, please consider supporting.

Thank you to the following users and companies for your support!


License

MIT