Trying Out Gaffa: A Simple REST API for Browser Automation That Just Works

I've been tinkering with web scraping and automation projects for a while now, and let's be honest, the setup can be a real headache. You've got headless browsers, proxy management, scaling issues—it's a lot. So when I came across Gaffa, which promises to handle all that with a single API call, I was pretty intrigued. I decided to take it for a spin and see if it lives up to the hype.

What Gaffa Actually Does

At its core, Gaffa is a service that lets you control real web browsers through a REST API. You tell it what to do—like navigate to a page, take a screenshot, or extract content—and it handles the execution on its infrastructure. The big sell is that it abstracts away the need to manage frameworks like Playwright or Selenium, deal with proxies, or worry about scaling your own browser farm.

First Impressions and Key Features

Signing up was straightforward, and they have a free tier to experiment on their demo site, which is a nice touch. No credit card required upfront, which always lowers the barrier to trying something new.

Looking at their features, a few things stood out immediately. The "Ready to Scale" promise is a big one. They claim to handle whatever volume you throw at it, which, if true, removes a massive operational burden. The use of real browsers for JavaScript rendering is another key point. Anyone who's dealt with headless browser quirks knows how valuable that consistency can be.

Perhaps the most appealing part for developers is that it's framework-free. You don't need to learn the intricacies of Puppeteer; you just use HTTP requests. They've also sorted out proxies, offering residential IPs from various locations, which is crucial for avoiding blocks.

The Data Processing Angle

This is where it got interesting for my use cases. Beyond fetching raw HTML, Gaffa can process pages into simplified HTML, LLM-ready markdown, or even save self-contained offline versions. For anyone working with AI or data pipelines, that website to markdown for LLM conversion feature is a significant time-saver. It's one of those details that shows they're thinking about modern data workflows.

Pricing and the "Credit" System

Their pricing is based on a credit system. Plans start at $29/month for the Starter tier, which includes 9,000 credits. They explain that 10,000 credits is roughly 83 hours of browser time without proxies. Costs are based on request length and proxy bandwidth. It's a bit different from pure time-based pricing, so you need to estimate your usage. They have higher tiers for startups ($99/month) and scaling teams ($249/month), plus a pay-as-you-go option.

My Take and Lingering Questions

I like the concept a lot. The idea of offloading the messy infrastructure of browser automation is very compelling. The free demo lets you properly test the API's feel before committing, which is smart.

But, you know, I always wonder about the lock-in. Once you build your workflows around their API, how easy is it to move if you need to? And while the credit system is flexible, estimating costs for complex, long-running tasks with proxies might require some careful calculation. It seems powerful, but I'd want to run a real, medium-sized project through it to see how the costs and reliability hold up.

Anyway, if you're tired of managing your own browser automation stack and just want a simple way to get the job done, Gaffa is definitely worth a look. You can start poking around their features for free on their demo site.

If this sounds like it could solve a problem for you, the best way to find out is to try it. Head over to https://gaffa.dev/ to sign up and see if their simple REST API approach fits your workflow.

Illustrations in this post are sourced from https://genillu.com.