Cloudflare Browser Rendering - Complete Reference

Production-ready knowledge domain for building browser automation workflows with Cloudflare Browser Rendering.

Status: Production Ready ✅ Last Updated: 2026-01-21 Dependencies: cloudflare-worker-base (for Worker setup) Latest Versions: @cloudflare/puppeteer@1.0.4, @cloudflare/playwright@1.1.0, wrangler@4.59.3

Recent Updates (2025):

• Sept 2025: Playwright v1.55 GA, Stagehand framework support (Workers AI), /links excludeExternalLinks param
• Aug 2025: Billing GA (Aug 20), /sessions endpoint in local dev, X-Browser-Ms-Used header
• July 2025: Playwright v1.54.1 + MCP v0.0.30, Playwright local dev support (wrangler@4.26.0+), Puppeteer v22.13.1 sync, /content returns title, /json custom_ai param, /screenshot viewport 1920x1080 default
• June 2025: Web Bot Auth headers auto-included
• April 2025: Playwright support launched, free tier introduced

---

Table of Contents

1. Quick Start (5 minutes)
2. Browser Rendering Overview
3. Puppeteer API Reference
4. Playwright API Reference
5. Session Management
6. Common Patterns
7. Pricing & Limits
8. Known Issues Prevention
9. Production Checklist

---

Quick Start (5 minutes)

1. Add Browser Binding

wrangler.jsonc:

{
  "name": "browser-worker",
  "main": "src/index.ts",
  "compatibility_date": "2023-03-14",
  "compatibility_flags": ["nodejs_compat"],
  "browser": {
    "binding": "MYBROWSER"
  }
}

Why nodejs_compat? Browser Rendering requires Node.js APIs and polyfills.

2. Install Puppeteer

npm install @cloudflare/puppeteer

3. Take Your First Screenshot

import puppeteer from "@cloudflare/puppeteer";

interface Env {
  MYBROWSER: Fetcher;
}

export default {
  async fetch(request: Request, env: Env): Promise<Response> {
    const { searchParams } = new URL(request.url);
    const url = searchParams.get("url") || "https://example.com";

    // Launch browser
    const browser = await puppeteer.launch(env.MYBROWSER);
    const page = await browser.newPage();

    // Navigate and capture
    await page.goto(url);
    const screenshot = await page.screenshot();

    // Clean up
    await browser.close();

    return new Response(screenshot, {
      headers: { "content-type": "image/png" }
    });
  }
};

4. Deploy

npx wrangler deploy

Test at: https://your-worker.workers.dev/?url=https://example.com

CRITICAL:

• Always pass env.MYBROWSER to puppeteer.launch() (not undefined)
• Always call browser.close() when done (or use browser.disconnect() for session reuse)
• Use nodejs_compat compatibility flag

---

Browser Rendering Overview

What is Browser Rendering?

Cloudflare Browser Rendering provides headless Chromium browsers running on Cloudflare's global network. Use familiar tools like Puppeteer and Playwright to automate browser tasks:

• Screenshots - Capture visual snapshots of web pages
• PDF Generation - Convert HTML/URLs to PDFs
• Web Scraping - Extract content from dynamic websites
• Testing - Automate frontend tests
• Crawling - Navigate multi-page workflows

Two Integration Methods

This skill covers Workers Bindings (the advanced method with full Puppeteer/Playwright APIs).

Puppeteer vs Playwright

Recommendation: Use Puppeteer for most use cases. Playwright is ideal if you're already using it for testing.

---

Puppeteer API Reference

Core APIs (complete reference: https://pptr.dev/api/):

Global Functions:

• puppeteer.launch(env.MYBROWSER, options?) - Launch new browser (CRITICAL: must pass binding)
• puppeteer.connect(env.MYBROWSER, sessionId) - Connect to existing session
• puppeteer.sessions(env.MYBROWSER) - List running sessions
• puppeteer.history(env.MYBROWSER) - List recent sessions (open + closed)
• puppeteer.limits(env.MYBROWSER) - Check account limits

Browser Methods:

• browser.newPage() - Create new tab (preferred over launching new browsers)
• browser.sessionId() - Get session ID for reuse
• `browser.cl

...