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Browsertrix

by Webrecorder · Platform · also known as Browsertrix Cloud, Browsertrix Crawler

Webrecorder's browser-based web archiving system, available hosted or self-hosted, that crawls sites with real browsers into signed WACZ files replayable with ReplayWeb.page

AGPL-3.0-only licensePaidEnterpriseOpen sourceCloudSelf-hostedSelf-hostable
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Link verified Nov 2, 2026

Overview

Browsertrix is a high-fidelity web archiving platform from Webrecorder, the organization behind the WACZ format and ReplayWeb.page. Rather than fetching raw HTML, it drives real browsers through a site, executing JavaScript and capturing media and interactive content, and packages the result as digitally signed WACZ files (which contain standard WARC data). Crawl workflows define scope, limits and schedules; teams can pause and resume crawls, review quality with side-by-side comparisons of screenshots, text and HTML against the live site, annotate problem pages, and merge crawls into collections that can be kept private or published to a gallery with embedded replay.

It is offered as a hosted subscription with tiers bounded by execution minutes, storage and concurrency and a short free trial, and as open-source software under AGPL-3.0 that institutions can self-host (the deployment targets Kubernetes). The underlying Browsertrix Crawler can also be run on its own in Docker. Browsertrix is widely used by libraries, archives and researchers who need faithful captures of modern websites.

Limits: browser-based crawling is slower and more resource-intensive than HTTP crawling, self-hosting requires Kubernetes operations skills, and the AGPL license matters for organizations that modify and host it.

Capabilities

  • Browser-based crawling of JavaScript-heavy sites
  • Signed WACZ output containing WARC data
  • Scheduled, pausable workflows with scope controls
  • Crawl QA comparing archive against the live site
  • Collections with public galleries and embedded ReplayWeb.page playback
  • Hosted service or AGPL self-hosting

Typical workflows

  1. Archive an institutional website monthly with QA review
  2. Capture a social-media or media-rich site faithfully
  3. Publish a collection of archived sites for researchers

Strengths

  • High-fidelity captures of modern web content
  • Open formats and open-source code
  • Team collaboration and review tooling

Limitations

  • Slower and heavier than HTTP crawlers
  • Self-hosting needs Kubernetes
  • AGPL obligations for modified hosted deployments

Prerequisites

  • Browsertrix account, or Kubernetes cluster for self-hosting

Who it is for

  • Libraries, archives and memory institutions
  • Researchers preserving dynamic websites

Alternatives & comparison

  • ArchiveBox

    Self-hosted, open-source web archiving tool that saves URLs as HTML, PDF, screenshot, WARC, readable text and media snapshots with a web UI and CLI

    Open sourceOpen source
  • Crawlee

    Open-source crawling and scraping library for Node.js/TypeScript and Python that unifies HTTP and headless-browser crawlers with queues, proxies, fingerprints and storage

    Open sourceOpen source
  • Wayback Machine

    The Internet Archive's public web archive for browsing historical snapshots of web pages, with Save Page Now, Availability, CDX and Memento APIs

    ProprietaryFree
Compare Browsertrix with its alternatives →

Sources & verification

Primary sources consulted for this record. Claims are tied to the fields each source supports; the automated link checker re-verifies every URL on a schedule.

Confidence
High
Reviewed
Nov 1, 2026
Links
Verified · Nov 2, 2026

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Common Crawl

Common Crawl Foundation · Web archiving

Nonprofit open repository of petabyte-scale web crawl data since 2008, published as WARC, WAT and WET files on AWS Open Data with URL and columnar indexes

MixedFreeNov 2, 2026