I built a Code Screenshot REST API because Carbon and Ray.so don't have one

The Flutter Guy — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:19:34 +0000

The itch I had to scratch

Every time I wrote a technical blog post or generated docs, I needed code screenshots. I'd open Carbon, paste my snippet, tweak the theme, hit export, download the file. Repeat for every snippet. It was manual, slow, and couldn't be automated.

Carbon is beautiful. Ray.so is slick. But neither has a REST API. If you want code screenshots in a pipeline — you're on your own.

So I built SnapMyCode.

What it is

SnapMyCode is a code screenshot service with three ways to use it:

Snap — paste code, pick a theme, download instantly. No account needed, unlimited quick use.
Editor — visual canvas editor. Arrange multiple code snippets, customize everything, export as a single image.
REST API — the real reason I built this.

The API

curl -X POST https://api.snapmycode.in/api/v1/image \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"code": "const greet = (name) => `Hello, ${name}!`", "theme": "tokyo-night", "language": "javascript"}' \
  --output screenshot.png

POST your code, get back a PNG. Or SVG. Or JPEG. Or WebP. 19 themes, 27 languages, line highlighting, custom font size and padding.

Why this matters for developers

Docs generators: auto-produce code screenshots at build time
Blog pipelines: never manually screenshotting code again
GitHub Actions: generate README screenshots on push
Portfolio sites: consistent code image style across all posts
Discord/Slack bots: share beautiful code snippets automatically
Content creators: automate your entire code-to-social pipeline

How it's built

The rendering stack is Playwright + Chromium on Google Cloud Run — full headless browser, not a canvas hack. This means pixel-perfect output at any resolution.

Syntax highlighting: Shiki v4 (the same library VS Code uses internally).

Backend: Fastify v5 + Node.js, TypeScript throughout. Auth: Firebase. Data: Firestore. Frontend: Next.js + Tailwind v4 on Vercel.

What makes it different vs Carbon and Ray.so

Feature	SnapMyCode	Carbon	Ray.so
REST API	✅	❌	❌
SVG export	✅	❌	❌
Multi-snippet editor	✅	❌	❌
Line highlighting	✅	❌	❌
PNG/JPEG/WebP	✅	✅	✅
19 themes	✅	✅	❌
Free tier	✅	✅	✅

Pricing

Free: 10 API renders/day + unlimited quick paste — enough to try everything
Pro: $9/mo — 500 renders/day
Enterprise: $49/mo — 1000 renders/day + priority rendering + email support

Try it

snapmycode.in — free to start, no credit card.

Curious what other devs think — especially those who've tried to automate code screenshots before. What was your workaround? Would love to hear.

DEV Community: The Flutter Guy