🚀 How to Install Chromium for Puppeteer on AWS (EC2 or Lambda) – ██FR█████ █INTELL███████████

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Kaibalya Kar

Why This Happens

AWS environments (like Amazon Linux 2 on EC2 or Lambda) don’t come with Chromium installed by default. Also, the headless version Puppeteer tries to download is often incompatible with AWS’s OS.

To make Puppeteer work, you need:

A compatible headless Chromium binary.
Proper dependencies installed (fonts, sandbox libs, etc.).
The right launch options.

Why This Happens

AWS environments (like Amazon Linux 2 on EC2 or Lambda) don’t come with Chromium installed by default. Also, the headless version Puppeteer tries to download is often incompatible with AWS’s OS.

To make Puppeteer work, you need:

A compatible headless Chromium binary.
Proper dependencies installed (fonts, sandbox libs, etc.).
The right launch options.

sudo yum update -y

# Install missing libraries
sudo yum install -y \
  atk.x86_64 \
  cups-libs.x86_64 \
  gtk3.x86_64 \
  libXcomposite.x86_64 \
  libXcursor.x86_64 \
  libXdamage.x86_64 \
  libXext.x86_64 \
  libXi.x86_64 \
  libXrandr.x86_64 \
  libXss.x86_64 \
  libXtst.x86_64 \
  pango.x86_64 \
  alsa-lib.x86_64 \
  ipa-gothic-fonts \
  xorg-x11-fonts-100dpi \
  xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi \
  xorg-x11-utils \
  xorg-x11-fonts-cyrillic \
  xorg-x11-fonts-Type1 \
  xorg-x11-fonts-misc \
  wget

Step 2: Download a Compatible Chromium Binary

cd ~
mkdir chromium && cd chromium

wget https://github.com/Sparticuz/chromium/releases/download/v123.0.0/chromium.br
# OR another known working build for Amazon Linux

# Decompress
brew install brotli # if needed
brotli --decompress chromium.br
chmod +x chromium

Step 3: Point Puppeteer to This Chromium

Now in your Node.js code:

import puppeteer from 'puppeteer-core';

const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
  executablePath: '/home/ec2-user/chromium/chromium',
  headless: true,
  args: [
    '--no-sandbox',
    '--disable-setuid-sandbox',
  ],
});

Bonus: Using Puppeteer with Chromium in AWS Lambda?

Use chrome-aws-lambda:

npm install puppeteer-core chrome-aws-lambda

Then:

import chromium from 'chrome-aws-lambda';
import puppeteer from 'puppeteer-core';

export const handler = async () => {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
    args: chromium.args,
    defaultViewport: chromium.defaultViewport,
    executablePath: await chromium.executablePath,
    headless: chromium.headless,
  });

  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://example.com');
  const screenshot = await page.screenshot();

  await browser.close();

  return screenshot;
};

Test It

After setup:

node yourScript.js

If all goes well, Chromium should launch and Puppeteer will work as expected!

Summary

Task Done

Install system dependencies
Download compatible Chromium
Launch Puppeteer with custom binary

Running Puppeteer on AWS isn’t plug and play and but once Chromium is correctly installed and referenced, everything runs smoothly.

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Kaibalya Kar