html4pdf vs Gotenberg
This is the closest comparison on the site, because Gotenberg is the same idea: an HTTP API in front of a renderer. The difference is who operates it.
The short answer
Gotenberg is the right answer if you want this capability inside your own infrastructure and have somewhere to run a container. We are the right answer if you want it without running anything.
What Gotenberg is
Gotenberg is an open source Docker container exposing a document conversion API. It wraps headless Chromium for HTML and URLs, and LibreOffice for Office documents, behind a consistent HTTP interface. It is free, actively maintained, and converts formats we do not touch, such as docx and xlsx.
Side by side
| Gotenberg | html4pdf | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Open source, free | Paid per document |
| Who runs it | You, as a container | We do |
| Office documents | Yes, via LibreOffice | No, HTML, URLs and templates |
| Memory | You size it, Chromium and LibreOffice are both hungry | Not your concern |
| Scaling | Your orchestrator, your autoscaling rules | Included |
| Data | Never leaves your network | Rendered in memory, never stored |
| Templates | Bring your own | Invoice, receipt, contract and certificate built in |
| Updates | You pull and redeploy | Nothing to do |
| Cost at volume | One instance, however many documents | Per document |
Choose Gotenberg when
- Documents must stay inside your network, with no outbound call at all.
- You need Word and Excel conversion as well as HTML.
- You run Kubernetes or similar and adding a container is routine.
- Volume is high and steady, where one instance beats per-document pricing comfortably.
Choose html4pdf when
- You do not want another service in your deployment, however good it is.
- Traffic is spiky, and an instance sized for the peak is idle most of the week.
- You want built-in document templates rather than writing HTML for every type.
- Nobody on the team wants to own the renderer when it falls over on a Sunday.
See the code
The working example, in the language this decision is being made in.
Gotenberg: common questions
Is Gotenberg free?
Yes, it is open source and free to run. The cost is the infrastructure it sits on and the attention it needs, which is the real comparison rather than the licence.
Can Gotenberg convert Word documents?
Yes, through LibreOffice. That is a genuine capability we do not have: we take HTML, URLs and JSON templates.
Should I self-host instead of using an API?
If your volume is steady and high, or your data cannot leave the network, self-hosting is the better economics and the better answer. If PDFs are occasional, you are paying for an idle instance and the time to keep it healthy.
Can I move between them later?
Both are HTTP APIs taking HTML, so the swap is contained. Keep the call behind one function in your codebase and it is an afternoon either way.
Try it before you decide
New accounts get 10 free credits, no card. Send the HTML you already have and compare the output against whatever you are using now.
Other comparisons
- html4pdf vs PuppeteerRun Puppeteer yourself if PDFs are high volume and you already operate containers. Use an API if PDFs are a feature of your product and you do not want Chrome in your deployment.
- html4pdf vs wkhtmltopdfwkhtmltopdf is still fine for simple documents you already have working. For anything new, or anything using modern CSS, its archived WebKit engine is the problem you will eventually hit.
- html4pdf vs WeasyPrintIf your document is HTML and CSS with no scripts, WeasyPrint is excellent and free, and you should use it. If anything on the page is drawn by JavaScript, you need a browser.
- html4pdf vs DompdfDompdf is the right answer for a simple document on shared hosting with no extra services. It is the wrong answer for anything designed with modern CSS, because it implements CSS 2.1.
- html4pdf vs jsPDF and html2canvasjsPDF with html2canvas is free and needs no backend, and it produces a picture of your page rather than a document. If the text has to be selectable, searchable or printable at quality, it is the wrong tool.
- html4pdf vs @react-pdf/rendererUse react-pdf when the document is small, stable, and worth building as its own component tree. Use a renderer when the PDF should be the same thing your users already see on screen.
- html4pdf vs printing from the browserIf the user is the one who wants the PDF and is sitting in front of the page, use window.print() and a print stylesheet. If your system needs the file, you need a renderer.
- html4pdf vs PlaywrightPlaywright is the better browser automation library. It is not a better PDF pipeline, because the cost was never the library: it is operating the browser. Use it if you already run it, call an API if you do not.
- html4pdf vs running Chromium in a LambdaIt works, it is free, and it is the single most fiddly part of most codebases that do it. If your function is already near the size limit or your users wait on the first request, the trade has stopped paying.
- html4pdf vs mPDFmPDF is the best free answer in PHP for long, table-heavy documents written as documents. It is still its own engine, so a design built in a browser will not arrive intact.
- html4pdf vs ReportLabReportLab is the right tool when the document is a fixed, precise artefact and you want no dependencies. It is the wrong tool when the design changes often, because every change is a code change.
- html4pdf vs iTextIf you need deep PDF manipulation on the JVM and can accept AGPL or buy a licence, iText is the strongest tool available. If you only need HTML turned into a document, the licence question is one you can skip entirely.
- html4pdf vs QuestPDFQuestPDF is excellent for documents you are happy to describe in C#. If the document already exists as a web page, you would be rebuilding it, and that duplication is the whole cost.
- html4pdf vs PDFKitPDFKit is a good fit for simple, fixed documents generated at volume, where no browser and no network is worth writing the layout by hand. Beyond that the hand-written layout becomes the problem.