Over the past years, many thumbnail providers have come and gone. Even some big name providers have gone belly up, since ShrinkTheWeb began offerings its services. This page serves as a farewell to the ones who have tried but didn't survive.

R.I.P. Thumbnail Providers

Thumbnail Provider Name Cause of Death Time of Death Snapito Insufficient Resources November 11, 2014 Notes: Promising up-and-coming competitor in the snapshotting space, but cited too much time required to make it work.

Notes: Acquired by ShrinkTheWeb Snap.com Unsustainable Business Model Est: October 2011 Notes: This service is not quite the same as ShrinkTheWeb, though it is confusingly similar in that it shows screenshots

of web pages to end-users. It does not, however, provide automated website screenshots as an integrated solution.

Notes: Even though publicly endorsed by TechCrunch and with $10M in funding, this site was unable to build momentum. Pageglimpse Insufficient Funding/Scalability December 15, 2010 Notes: Even though publicly promoted and backed by TechCrunch and editors, this site was unable to stay in the market. Snapcasa Insufficient Funding/Scalability Est: October 2009 Notes: Service broken through most of 2009; Completely abandoned during 2010

Notes: Converted to a Screenshot Provider Comparison site in 2012. Later acquired by URL2PNG. Thumbnails Pro Insufficient Funding/Scalability August 15, 2009 Notes: Acquired by E4Sites (service appears broken since that time) Alexa Site Thumbnail (AWS) Flawed Pricing Model June 12, 2009 Notes: Shutdown, almost 1 year to the day, after the official launch of ShrinkTheWeb Thmbnl Catastrophic Data Loss January 30, 2009 Notes: Project abandoned by ma.gnolia after they suffered a catastrophic, unrecoverable data loss

Notes: Acquired by ShrinkTheWeb Website Thumbnails (.com & .net) Insufficient Funding/Scalability August 30, 2008 Notes: Acquired by ShrinkTheWeb Thumbalizr Flawed Pricing Model -- Life Support -- Notes: Lots of reports that "new captures" stop working for days or weeks at-a-time. Been in "BETA" (and broken) for years. Webshotspro Flawed Pricing Model -- Life Support -- Notes: Does not appear that anyone actively uses their service. No reply to emails, even years later!

Honorable Mention: Thumbnail Providers

...that never made it off the ground

Thumbnail Provider Name Thumbnail Provider Name Thumbnail Provider Name BitPixels PicDonkey (Dead) SiteThumbshot Bildesel.de (Dead) ScreenThumbs MyThumbnail (Dead) Webseitentuning Websitethumbnail.de (acquired by STW) Picoshot (acquired by STW) mShots by WP (good for light use) Thumbizy.com (Dead) SuperScreenshot (Dead) Thumboo (good for light use) WebShrinker Mr-Thumb (acquired by STW) MyThumbshots (acquired by STW)

The problem in the niche is that this service is very expensive to operate for more than just a handful of heavy users. As services begin to get popular, they learn quickly that they cannot afford to keep up with demand. ShrinkTheWeb was designed from the ground up to be scalable and the founders invested the money to put it at the forefront, by utilizing only the best servers, redundancy, personnel, software, and proprietary technologies.