Track Changes Online with ChangeDetection, a Self-Hosted Docker Container!

Tracking things on the web just got a whole lot easier with ChangeDetection, the free and open source Docker container! Track website changes, price changes of products, and even track out of stock products with notifications all from a container you host yourself!

📺 Watch Video

Disclosures

• Thanks to Docker for Sponsoring this Video!
• Get Actionable insights for software supply chain management with Docker Scout! https://dockr.ly/45HWDnR

Info

⭐ ChangeDetection on GitHub: https://github.com/dgtlmoon/changedetection.io

Docker Setup

See this post on how to install docker and docker compose

Prepare Our Server

Create folder for your compose and mounts

mkdir changedetection
cd changedetection

Then we’ll create a folder to hold our data and our datastore

mkdir data
cd data
mkdir datastore
cd datastore
cd ../.. # go back to the root of changedetection/

Create docker compose file and add contents

touch compose.yaml
nano compose.yaml

Your folder structure should look like this

./changedetection
├── data
│   └── datastore
└── docker-compose.yml

Tasks from Our Compose File

Docker Compose Contents

Simple version of change detection

---
services:
  changedetection:
    image: ghcr.io/dgtlmoon/changedetection.io:latest
    container_name: changedetection
    hostname: changedetection
    environment:
      # - BASE_URL=https://mysite.com # configure this for your own domain
    volumes:
      - ./data/datastore:/datastore
    ports:
      - 5000:5000

Advanced version of change detection

If you want to use Selenium + Webdriver, uncomment the WEBDRIVER_URL variable and the browser-chrome service, and then comment out PLAYWRIGHT_DRIVER_URL variable and playwright-chrome service.

To see all supported configurations, see the Docker compose file on github

---
services:
  changedetection:
    image: ghcr.io/dgtlmoon/changedetection.io:latest
    container_name: changedetection
    hostname: changedetection
    volumes:
      - ./data/datastore:/datastore
    ports:
      - 5000:5000
    environment:
      # - WEBDRIVER_URL=http://playwright-chrome:4444/wd/hub
      - PLAYWRIGHT_DRIVER_URL=ws://playwright-chrome:3000
      # - BASE_URL=https://mysite.com # configure this for your own domain

    depends_on:
      playwright-chrome:
        condition: service_started
    restart: unless-stopped

  # browser-chrome:
  #   hostname: browser-chrome
  #   image: selenium/standalone-chrome:125.0
  #   shm_size: '2gb'
  #   # volumes:
  #   #     # Workaround to avoid the browser crashing inside a docker container
  #   #     # See https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/docker-selenium#quick-start
  #   #     - /dev/shm:/dev/shm
  #   restart: unless-stopped
   
  playwright-chrome:
    hostname: playwright-chrome
    image: browserless/chrome
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - SCREEN_WIDTH=1920
      - SCREEN_HEIGHT=1024
      - SCREEN_DEPTH=16
      - ENABLE_DEBUGGER=false
      - PREBOOT_CHROME=true
      - CONNECTION_TIMEOUT=300000
      - MAX_CONCURRENT_SESSIONS=10
      - CHROME_REFRESH_TIME=600000
      - DEFAULT_BLOCK_ADS=true
      - DEFAULT_STEALTH=true
      # Ignore HTTPS errors, like for self-signed certs
      - DEFAULT_IGNORE_HTTPS_ERRORS=true

Chrome Extension

If you want to install the Chrome Extenions, you can but adding it here

• https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/changedetectionio-website/kefcfmgmlhmankjmnbijimhofdjekbop?hl=en

Then all you need to do to configure it is visit your ChangeDetection site and click Settings and it will automatically configure it for you!

Then when visiting a site, all you need to do it click the extension and click add!

Join the conversation

This week I spun up ChangeDetection, a free and open source (and self-hosted) container to help you track things on the web!
Check it out!https://t.co/Kmi5i94GcJ pic.twitter.com/s1uteYMHtH

— Techno Tim (@TechnoTimLive) June 21, 2024

Links

🛍️ Check out the new Merch Shop at https://l.technotim.live/shop

⚙️ See all the hardware I recommend at https://l.technotim.live/gear

🚀 Don’t forget to check out the 🚀Launchpad repo with all of the quick start source files

🤝 Support me and help keep this site ad-free!