Browserless

Deploy Browserless on a VPS in One Click

Automation & workflowsDevOps, CI/CD & containers

Headless browser API for web scraping, automation, and testing — running entirely on infrastructure you control.

  • Ready in ~5 min
  • Free installation
  • We handle the setup
At a glance
Version
Latest (2.x)
Operating system
Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS
Minimum RAM
4 GB
License
SSPL-1.0
Addressing
IPv4, IPv6
GitHub
14,000
Deployment~5 min
VPS plans

Choose a VPS plan for Browserless

Blazing-fast NVMe drives and powerful processors. Take a ready-made plan or build the configuration yourself.
Minex
Perfect for personal projects and small websites.
€3.20/mo
Save €0.80 per month

  • 1 vCPU core
  • 1 GB DDR5 RAM
  • 20 GB NVMe SSD
  • Full root access
  • 1 dedicated IPv4
  • 1 TB traffic
Basex
A great balance of power and affordable price.
€4.80/mo
Save €1.20 per month

  • 2 vCPU cores
  • 2 GB DDR5 RAM
  • 40 GB NVMe SSD
  • Full root access
  • 1 dedicated IPv4
  • 2 TB traffic
Most popular
Corex
For growing applications and businesses.
€7.20/mo
Save €1.80 per month

  • 4 vCPU cores
  • 4 GB DDR5 RAM
  • 50 GB NVMe SSD
  • Full root access
  • 1 dedicated IPv4
  • Unlimited traffic
Midex
Resources for high-load projects.
€9.60/mo
Save €2.40 per month

  • 4 vCPU cores
  • 6 GB DDR5 RAM
  • 60 GB NVMe SSD
  • Full root access
  • 1 dedicated IPv4
  • Unlimited traffic
Proex
Maximum power and scalability.
€12.00/mo
Save €3.00 per month

  • 6 vCPU cores
  • 8 GB DDR5 RAM
  • 70 GB NVMe SSD
  • Full root access
  • 1 dedicated IPv4
  • Unlimited traffic
Scalex
Resources for scaling.
€16.00/mo
Save €4.00 per month

  • 6 vCPU cores
  • 10 GB DDR5 RAM
  • 150 GB NVMe SSD
  • Full root access
  • 1 dedicated IPv4
  • Unlimited traffic
Maxex
A large reserve of power.
€44.00/mo
Save €11.00 per month

  • 8 vCPU cores
  • 16 GB DDR5 RAM
  • 200 GB NVMe SSD
  • Full root access
  • 1 dedicated IPv4
  • Unlimited traffic
Apex
The top configuration.
€79.99/mo
Save €20.00 per month

  • 16 vCPU cores
  • 32 GB DDR5 RAM
  • 400 GB NVMe SSD
  • Full root access
  • 1 dedicated IPv4
  • Unlimited traffic

What you can do with Browserless

Browserless is a headless browser infrastructure tool built for developers who need to run Puppeteer or Playwright code, plus REST endpoints, against real Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, WebKit, or Edge instances without managing browser binaries by hand. The open-source Docker image runs your Puppeteer and Playwright code over WebSocket, plus the REST APIs, inside your own environment. It's aimed at engineering teams building scrapers, QA pipelines, PDF/screenshot services, or browser-driven AI agents rather than end users browsing the web.

What sets Browserless apart is that the exact same container powers both the company's paid cloud and self-hosted deployments — your existing automation connects the same way it does in the cloud, so you can swap the endpoint and keep the code unchanged. That parity is precisely why self-hosting Browserless on a VPS makes sense: teams doing high-volume scraping or handling sensitive page content get Browserless self hosted with dedicated CPU and RAM instead of sharing concurrency slots on someone else's cloud, while regulated workflows keep every screenshot and scraped payload inside infrastructure they operate. A Browserless vps hosting setup gives you that control without touching your existing Puppeteer or Playwright codebase.

The applications screen of the control panel with one-click install

Browserless features

A server surrounded by app icons — applications running on a VPS

Beyond running headless Chrome in a container, Browserless packages the operational pieces a browser-automation team usually has to build themselves.

01

Multi-browser support

The multi-browser image ships Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, WebKit, and Edge, so the same instance can target different rendering engines for cross-browser testing.

02

Puppeteer & Playwright over WebSocket

Connect your existing automation scripts directly to a remote browser session instead of launching local binaries.

03

REST API layer

Trigger screenshots, PDF generation, and page content extraction over plain HTTP calls, no browser-library dependency required on the caller's side.

04

Built-in observability

OpenTelemetry traces and metrics, structured logs, and a live debugger show what every session is doing inside your own stack.

05

Configurable concurrency and queueing

Set concurrency limits, queueing behavior, and timeouts, then scale horizontally by putting a load balancer in front of multiple containers — a natural fit for a Browserless vps docker deployment where you add containers as load grows.

06

Health and metrics endpoints

A dedicated pressure endpoint reports current load so orchestration tooling can react before sessions start failing.

07

Persistent role-based tokens

Per-team tokens with admin, developer, viewer, or public roles persist to disk and survive container restarts.

Requirements

Which server to run it on

Minimum requirements for Browserless and the configuration worth starting with.
Minimum
  • CPU2 vCPU
  • Minimum RAM4 GB
  • Disk20 GB
Recommended
VPS Corex
  • CPU4 vCPU
  • Minimum RAM4 GB
  • Disk50 GB

Installation is free — you only pay for the server

Getting started

How to deploy Browserless

Three steps and the app is running on your server.
Step 1
Choose a server

Pick a plan with at least 2 CPU cores and 4 GB RAM — below that threshold Chromium in a container becomes unstable under parallel load.

Step 2
Pick the app

Select Browserless in the catalog to install Browserless on vps automatically — the panel deploys the Docker container for you.

Step 3
Get your credentials

Once it is running, the panel gives you the WebSocket/REST endpoint address and an API token for connecting your existing Puppeteer or Playwright code.

Why us

Why Host Browserless on Leneex

Speed, protection and support you can rely on — on every plan, with no hidden limits.
Deployment speed
Scraping and QA pipelines are usually blocked on "we need a browser somewhere" — a VPS with Browserless pre-wired removes that step and gets a working WebSocket endpoint online in minutes, not a sprint.
Free installation
Browserless itself ships as a free, open-source SSPL-licensed image, so pairing it with a €0 install means the only real cost is the server itself while you evaluate whether self-hosting fits your automation volume.
DDoS protection
An exposed Browserless endpoint accepts remote WebSocket and HTTP connections by design, which makes it a plausible target for connection-flood abuse if it's ever reachable beyond a private network — DDoS mitigation keeps the automation endpoint answering instead of queuing forever.
Control and support
Chrome inside Docker is sensitive to shared-memory sizing, concurrency caps, and OS-level tuning; root access lets you adjust /dev/shm, CONCURRENT, and QUEUED settings directly, and engineers are reachable when a Chromium process starts crashing under load.
99.9% uptime with SLA compensation
Automation and scraping jobs are usually triggered by schedulers or upstream pipelines, so a silently offline browser endpoint means jobs fail invisibly for hours — an SLA-backed uptime commitment protects pipelines that depend on the container always being reachable.
Flexible payment
Agencies and dev teams running several parallel Browserless containers across client projects benefit from being able to pay by card, crypto, or invoice per project rather than fitting every workload into one vendor's billing model.
What to choose

Browserless: Self-Hosted vs Cloud — Which to Choose

We compare cost, control over your data and limits, so the choice is an informed one.
Browserless Cloud
Self-hosted on LeneexRecommended
Resources and limitsComputing resources are shared with other customers, and regions are fixed (San Francisco, London, and Amsterdam)Dedicated CPU and RAM exclusively for your sessions, with concurrency limited only by the CONCURRENT setting you configure yourself
Control and accessManaged dashboard and fleet operations are handled by the vendor, with limited customization optionsRoot access to the container, allowing you to extend the base image with custom fonts, npm modules, and routes
Feature limitsBrowserQL, stealth features, and session recording are available only on paid plans; managed proxies are included by defaultPuppeteer, Playwright, and the REST API are available out of the box; BrowserQL, stealth features, and session recording require a separate commercial license, just as they do in the cloud
ScalingScaling depends on the selected plan and the vendor's limitsAdd CPU/RAM or deploy additional containers behind a load balancer whenever you choose
CostSubscription costs increase with session volume and usageFixed VPS pricing regardless of the number of sessions, as long as server resources are sufficient
Who it fitsQuick setup, prototyping, and minimal operational overheadSteady high-volume scraping or automation, data-residency requirements, and a predictable budget

If you consistently run a high volume of parallel browser sessions or need to keep page data within your own infrastructure, self-hosted Browserless on a VPS is the more cost-effective option for this use case. You pay a fixed server fee instead of an ever-increasing subscription. For a short pilot or one-off prototype, the cloud version is quicker to launch, but it does not offer the same level of control over resources and data.

Frequently Asked Questions about Browserless on VPS

What people ask most about Browserless and our servers.

  • The browser itself does not retain state between sessions. However, if the user_data and downloads directories were used, they can be copied to the new server as regular files. This does not change the Browserless installation process.

  • Increasing CPU and RAM allows you to raise the CONCURRENT value in the container's environment variables and restart it. The endpoint URL and token remain unchanged, and no changes to your Puppeteer or Playwright code are required.

  • With 2 CPU cores and 4 GB of RAM, the developer indicates a guideline of 5–10 concurrent sessions. This is a light workload suitable for development and small pipelines, but not for production-scale workloads.

  • The Docker image version is pinned manually during installation. Automatic updates are disabled to avoid breaking existing integrations.

What Is Already Configured

After a one-click deployment, a Docker container running the open-source Browserless image starts and exposes a WebSocket and REST API on port 3000 inside the container. You can verify that it is working using the built-in endpoints: interactive API documentation is available at /docs, the health check at /pressure, and metrics at /metrics. Container restarts after a failure or host reboot are handled by Docker's restart policy. The specific policy (unless-stopped, always, etc.) used for one-click deployments is determined by the Leneex control panel.

This is how a one-click Browserless deployment works in practice: simply starting the container does not require manual configuration of Chromium, fonts, or dependencies, as these are already included in the image. Storage for downloaded files and browser user data can be attached separately as a volume, if needed.

Initial Access and Authentication Token

Connect to the browser using a URL in the following format: ws://your-domain:port/chromium?token=YOUR_TOKEN.

This works with Puppeteer and Playwright. Alternatively, you can send standard HTTP requests to REST endpoints for screenshots and PDF generation. A token is required for external access; without one, connections should generally be limited to a private network.

What to Check Before Production Workloads

By default, Docker allocates only 64 MB of shared memory to /dev/shm, which is insufficient for Chrome to run reliably under load. Increasing shared memory to at least 2 GB is recommended. If the Leneex control panel does not allow you to increase the container's shm_size through the interface, you will need to apply this setting manually through Docker Compose.

Deploy Browserless in about 5 minutes

Choose a server — we do the rest: install, configure and send you the credentials.