html4pdf vs PDFKit
Every Node project that wants PDFs without Chrome finds PDFKit. It is small, it is fast, and the first invoice takes an afternoon. The second design change is where opinions form.
The short answer
PDFKit 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.
What PDFKit is
PDFKit is a PDF generation library for Node and the browser. You write text at coordinates, draw lines and rectangles, embed images and fonts, and stream the result. No browser, no native dependency, and output that starts rendering immediately rather than after the whole document is built.
Side by side
| PDFKit | html4pdf | |
|---|---|---|
| What you write | JavaScript: text at x and y, lines, boxes | The HTML and CSS you already have |
| Layout | Yours to calculate, including page breaks | The browser does it |
| HTML and CSS | No | Yes |
| Streaming | Yes, output starts immediately | One response when the document is done |
| Dependencies | A npm package, no binary | An HTTPS call |
| Speed | Milliseconds | Three to five seconds including the round trip |
| Design changes | A code change and a redeploy | A template edit |
| Cost | Free | From $0.033 per document |
Choose PDFKit when
- A simple, fixed document generated in very large numbers.
- You need the output streamed as it is produced.
- No outbound call is acceptable and no browser may be installed.
- Nobody but developers will ever change the layout.
Choose html4pdf when
- The document has a design, and that design is maintained by someone looking at a browser.
- You are calculating page breaks by hand and it has stopped being fun.
- The layout must match a page your users already see.
- You want a chart, a web font, or a table whose rows vary in height.
See the code
The working example, in the language this decision is being made in.
PDFKit: common questions
Can PDFKit convert HTML to PDF?
No. It is a drawing library. Wrappers exist that parse a little HTML, but none of them is a browser, so a real page will not survive the trip.
Is PDFKit faster than headless Chrome?
Much faster, because it is writing a file rather than laying out a page. The cost is that you wrote the layout.
What about tables?
You draw them: measure the text, decide row heights, handle the page break when the table runs over. Several community helpers exist, with varying maturity.
Can I use both?
Yes, and some teams do: PDFKit for high-volume simple output such as labels, and a renderer for the documents customers actually read.
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 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.