WebSummoner

RIADVICE develops and maintains WebSummoner. Support, development and releases are handled by riadvice.com.

WebSummoner is a drop-in Selenium hub implementation written in Go. It reads a small JSON file describing which browser images to launch, starts a container per test session, and proxies the WebDriver protocol to it.

Why people use it:

• Lightweight — a single ~10 MB static binary, no Java, roughly 10× less memory than a Selenium server under the same load.
• Fully containerized browsers — every session gets an isolated, reproducible environment with an exact browser version.
• Built for testing workflows — video recording with sound, per-session logs, live screen viewing (VNC), clipboard and file exchange, DevTools protocol access.
• Observability built in — a /status endpoint and Prometheus metrics at /metrics covering sessions, queue depth and per-browser usage.
• Selenium-compatible — point your existing tests at http://localhost:4444/wd/hub and they just work.

WebSummoner is developed and maintained by RIADVICE — a Selenium hub updated for current Go toolchains and modern browser images.

Where to go next

Quick start

Run your first containerized browser session in five minutes — with or without Configuration Manager. Start here →

Capabilities reference

Everything you can pass in websummoner:options — video, VNC, screen resolution, limits and more, in one table. All capabilities →

Browsers configuration

The browsers.json file explained field by field, with a realistic multi-version example. Configure browsers →

Video, logs & VNC

Record sessions to H.264 video with sound, capture logs, watch the live browser screen. Guides →

Compare with alternatives

An honest comparison with Selenoid, Selenium Grid, Playwright and Puppeteer — including when to choose them instead. See the comparison →

The 30-second tour

1. Start WebSummoner (Docker path):

   docker run -d --name websummoner -p 4444:4444 \
       -v $PWD/browsers.json:/etc/websummoner/browsers.json:ro \
       -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
       websummoner/websummoner:latest

2. Point your tests at http://localhost:4444/wd/hub.

3. Open http://localhost:4444/status to see it working.