html4pdf vs mPDF
If you have outgrown Dompdf, mPDF is where most PHP projects land next, and for good reason. It is worth knowing exactly where its ceiling is before you build on it.
The short answer
mPDF 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.
What mPDF is
mPDF is a pure PHP HTML to PDF library, originally built on FPDF. It handles repeating table headers, running headers and footers, page numbering, watermarks, bookmarks and right-to-left scripts, which is more than most pure-language renderers manage. It needs no binary and installs with Composer.
Side by side
| mPDF | html4pdf | |
|---|---|---|
| Rendering engine | Its own, in PHP | Headless Chrome |
| Tables across pages | Strong: repeating headers, row splitting | Via CSS, which Chrome handles well |
| Headers and footers | First class, with page counters | Page options, or CSS Paged Media |
| Right-to-left text | Good support | Whatever Chrome does, which is good |
| Flexbox and grid | Not supported | Supported |
| JavaScript | Not executed | Runs before capture |
| Memory on long documents | High, a known constraint | Server side |
| Install | Composer, no system dependencies | Nothing |
| Cost | Free | From $0.033 per document |
Choose mPDF when
- Long, table-heavy documents: statements, reports, catalogues.
- You need running headers and page counters and would rather configure than write CSS.
- Arabic, Hebrew or other right-to-left content in a PHP codebase.
- No outbound calls, no recurring cost.
Choose html4pdf when
- The document is a web page your designer built, and it has to look like one.
- You need flexbox, grid or anything drawn by a script.
- mPDF's memory use on long documents has become the bottleneck.
- You would rather maintain one stylesheet than one for the screen and one for mPDF.
See the code
The working example, in the language this decision is being made in.
mPDF: common questions
mPDF or Dompdf?
mPDF, for anything long or table-heavy, and for right-to-left text. Dompdf is simpler and lighter for short documents. Neither is a browser, so neither reproduces a modern design.
Does mPDF support flexbox?
No. It implements its own subset of CSS, which does not include flexbox or grid, so those layouts fall back to block flow.
Why does mPDF run out of memory?
Layout happens in PHP and the whole document is held while it works, so long documents with large tables grow fast. Raising memory_limit helps up to a point; splitting the document helps more.
Can I keep mPDF for some documents?
Yes, and it is often the sensible split: leave the long statements where they work and route only the designed documents elsewhere.
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 GotenbergGotenberg 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.
- 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.