Automatically created website thumbnails have a wide usage from links in a website to a web application presenting URLs with their thumbnails.
Using a website thumbnail generation service is generally a time-saving decision both for the website owner (as it’ll be automated) & the visitor (for getting a better idea about the link).
Here are 10 free website thumbnail solutions including a "how to on creating your own".
Considering you’ll probably use one of these services in the future, make sure you bookmark the post.
ShrinkTheWeb
A powerful & free thumbnail service with 250,000 request limits / month & offers more limits in the paid plans.
For the free plan, no custom sizes can be mentioned & inner page thumbnails are not supported (but supports most of the popular sizes). On the other hand, the service is ad-free and works with JavaScript / Flash embed.
websnapr
websnapr offers free website thumbnails & puts a "powered by websnapr" phrase over the images. There are paid plans without imitations and more features.
There are ready to use plugins for WordPress, Drupal & more that can be found here.
thumbalizr
A free plan exists to create website thumbnails both with & without API support. Thumbnails are watermarked with "by thumbalizr" phrase & premium plans don’t have this limitation.
After signing-up, a PHP script is provided for caching the images locally for faster loads & minimum requests.
iWEBTOOL Thumbnails
A free thumbnails service for creating thumbnails of the links provided.
After inserting a JavaScript file to the webpages, system almost starts to work automatically.
There is a backlink in the thumbnails which can be removed by switching to a paid plan.
SnapCasa (project is abandoned)
A popular website thumbnail provider that has both free & paid plans.
Free plan is limited to 300,000 requests / month which is good for many websites. And, it is ad-free.
Usage is very simple, Just mention the thumbnail’s parameters in the imgtag & that’s all. Like:
<img src="http://SnapCasa.com/Get.aspx?code=[code]&size=[size]&url=[url]" />
artViper Website Thumbnails (project is abandoned)
This thumbnail service offers nice features in the free version like:
- Any size of thumbnails
- Subpage support
- Realtime preview & more.
A backlink is required in every page that the service is used & there are few JavaScript-Ajax tools provided to display thumbs.
thmbnl (project is abandoned)
thmbnl also provides free & paid plans. Free plan is limited to 1000 views / month.
Thumbnails are generated in 5 different sizes & codes are provided after a free membership.
Girafa (project is abandoned)
A nice service for creating URL thumbnails whose free plan is limited to 2000 views / day & does not support inner pages.
MyThumbnail (project is abandoned)
This free thumbnail generation service currently does not have a limit, supports sub-pages & any width-height can be mentioned.
Create Your Own Website Thumbnail Service
You can also create your own website thumbnail service & use it without limitations.
IECapt is a command line utility for capturing Internet Explorer’s rendering of a webpage (CutyCapt for Webkit).
Using these tools, you can capture the website screenshots by executing the tool from a dynamic file (like PHP, ASP, etc.). Here are more details.