Microlink alternatives

What Microlink provides

Microlink is a multi-purpose API built on headless Chromium. Its two main modes are:

• Link preview / metadata — given a URL, returns structured data: title, description, author, Open Graph tags, favicon, and more. Useful for building link-preview cards in social feeds or chat apps.
• Screenshot / PDF — renders a URL in headless Chrome and returns a PNG or PDF. Supports full-page capture, device emulation, and CSS injection.

The free tier allows 50 requests per day across both modes. Paid plans lift the cap but charge per request. At high volumes, cost accumulates fast.

Where Microlink falls short

• 50 req/day free-tier cap — 50 requests is exhausted quickly in any automated workflow: OG image generation, CI screenshot checks, or agent-driven page capture all exceed it within minutes.
• Per-request cost at scale — paid plans charge per API call. High-volume screenshot pipelines cost significantly more than a self-hosted solution.
• No self-hosting — Microlink is a SaaS-only product. There is no option to run it on your own infrastructure.
• Privacy — every URL and screenshot request goes to Microlink servers. Internal tools, staging environments, and authenticated pages pass through a third party.
• No HTML snippet input — Microlink accepts URLs only. You cannot pass a raw HTML string or upload a local HTML file for rendering.

What Openkova covers — and what it doesn't

Openkova is a focused screenshot and PDF tool. It covers Microlink's /screenshot functionality completely — URLs, full-page capture, HTML snippet rendering, format selection. It does not extract link-preview metadata (title, description, Open Graph tags). If you need metadata extraction alongside screenshots, combine Openkova with a dedicated metadata library:

• metascraper (Node.js) — extracts Open Graph, Twitter Card, and schema.org metadata from any URL
• cheerio — lightweight HTML parsing for extracting custom fields from fetched pages
• unfurl — Open Graph and Twitter Card metadata extraction in TypeScript

Comparison

Getting started with Openkova

git clone https://github.com/scnix-git/openkova
docker compose up

Screenshot a URL — no API key, no request count:

curl -N -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/convert/url \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com", "format": "png", "fullPage": true}'

Render an HTML snippet to a PNG:

curl -N -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/convert/snippet \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"html": "<div style=\"padding:48px;font-family:sans-serif\"><h1>OG Image</h1></div>"}'

See the API reference for the full endpoint list and SSE streaming format, or read how to generate OG images from HTML templates.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free alternative to Microlink for screenshots?

Yes. Openkova is free and MIT-licensed. Self-hosted means no usage cap — your only constraint is server capacity. Puppeteer and Playwright are also free open-source alternatives for programmatic screenshot capture.

What does Microlink offer that Openkova doesn't?

Microlink extracts link-preview metadata (title, description, Open Graph tags, author). Openkova is a screenshot and PDF tool — it does not extract metadata from URLs. For that, use a dedicated library such as metascraper or unfurl alongside Openkova.

Can Openkova generate OG images from HTML templates?

Yes. POST /api/convert/snippet accepts a raw HTML string and renders it with headless Chromium. Pass your OG image template as HTML and receive a PNG in return. See Generate Open Graph Images from HTML Templates.

Does Openkova deploy to Railway or Fly.io?

Yes. Openkova ships with a Dockerfile that includes a pre-installed Chromium binary. Deploy with a single railway up or fly deploy command. Once running, the REST API is available at your service URL with no additional configuration.

Also compare: ScreenshotOne alternatives, Urlbox alternatives, and Browserless alternatives.