1.1.2

Running in Docker

Running headless browsers in Docker requires a lot of setup to do it right. But you don't need to worry about that, because we already did it for you and created base images that you can freely use. We use them every day on the Apify Platform.

All images can be found in their GitHub repo and in our DockerHub.

Overview

Browsers are pretty big, so we try to provide a wide variety of images to suit your needs. Here's a full list of our Docker images.

Example Dockerfile

To use our images, you need a Dockerfile. You can either use this example, or bootstrap your projects with the Apify CLI which automatically copies the correct Dockerfile into your project folder.

# First, specify the base Docker image. You can read more about
# the available images at https://sdk.apify.com/docs/guides/docker-images
# You can also use any other image from Docker Hub.
FROM apify/actor-node

# Second, copy just package.json and package-lock.json since it should be
# the only file that affects "npm install" in the next step, to speed up the build
COPY package*.json ./

# Install NPM packages, skip optional and development dependencies to
# keep the image small. Avoid logging too much and print the dependency
# tree for debugging
RUN npm --quiet set progress=false \
 && npm install --only=prod --no-optional \
 && echo "Installed NPM packages:" \
 && (npm list || true) \
 && echo "Node.js version:" \
 && node --version \
 && echo "NPM version:" \
 && npm --version

# Next, copy the remaining files and directories with the source code.
# Since we do this after NPM install, quick build will be really fast
# for most source file changes.
COPY . ./

# Optionally, specify how to launch the source code of your actor.
# By default, Apify's base Docker images define the CMD instruction
# that runs the Node.js source code using the command specified
# in the "scripts.start" section of the package.json file.
# In short, the instruction looks something like this:
#
# CMD npm start

Versioning

The images are tagged with the version of the library that's preinstalled in the image. This ensures compatibility. For example, apify/actor-node-puppeteer-chrome:5.5.0 comes with Puppeteer v5.5.0, which bundles Chromium 88, and we add Chrome 88. If you try to install a different version of Puppeteer into this image, you may run into compatibility issues.

Similarly apify/actor-node-playwright-firefox:1.7.1 is pre-installed with the Firefox version that comes with v1.7.1.

Installing apify/actor-node-puppeteer-chrome (without a tag) will install the latest available version.

We recommend using asterisk * as the version in your package.json files. It makes sure the pre-installed version of Puppeteer or Playwright is not reinstalled. This is important, because those libraries are only guaranteed to work with specific versions of browsers, and those browsers come pre-installed in the image.

FROM apify/actor-node-playwright-chrome

{
    "dependencies": {
        "playwright": "*"
    }
}

Warning about image size

Browsers are huge. If you don't need them all in your image, it's better to use a smaller image with only the one browser you need.

Be careful when installing new dependencies. Nothing prevents you from installing Playwright into the actor-node-puppeteer-chrome image, but the resulting image will be about 3 times larger and extremely slow to download and build.

Use only what you need, and you'll be rewarded with reasonable build and start times.

actor-node

This is the smallest image we have based on Alpine Linux. It does not include any browsers, and it's therefore best used with CheerioCrawler. It benefits from lightning fast builds and container startups.

PuppeteerCrawler, PlaywrightCrawler and other browser based features will NOT work with this image.

FROM apify/actor-node

actor-node-puppeteer-chrome

This image includes Puppeteer (Chromium) and the Chrome browser. It can be used with CheerioCrawler and PuppeteerCrawler, but NOT with PlaywrightCrawler.

The image supports XVFB by default, so you can run both headless and headful browsers with it.

FROM apify/actor-node-puppeteer-chrome

actor-node-playwright

A very large and slow image that can run all Playwright browsers: Chromium, Chrome, Firefox, WebKit. Everything is installed. If you need to develop or test with multiple browsers, this is the image to choose, but in most cases, we suggest using the specialized images below.

FROM apify/actor-node-playwright

actor-node-playwright-chrome

Similar to actor-node-puppeteer-chrome, but for Playwright. You can run CheerioCrawler and PlaywrightCrawler, but NOT PuppeteerCrawler.

It uses the PLAYWRIGHT_SKIP_BROWSER_DOWNLOAD environment variable to block installation of more browsers into your images (to keep them small). If you want more browsers, either choose the actor-node-playwright image or override this env var.

The image supports XVFB by default, so you can run both headless and headful browsers with it.

FROM apify/actor-node-playwright-chrome

actor-node-playwright-firefox

Same idea as actor-node-playwright-chrome, but with Firefox pre-installed.

FROM apify/actor-node-playwright-firefox

actor-node-playwright-webkit

Same idea as actor-node-playwright-chrome, but with WebKit pre-installed.

FROM apify/actor-node-playwright-webkit
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