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HTML-to-PDF, compared
Weighing your options? Here are honest, side-by-side comparisons with the tools and APIs teams evaluate — engines, pricing, features, and how to migrate.
wkhtmltopdf is archived and carries an unpatched critical CVE. Migrate to a hosted HTML-to-PDF API rendered on current headless Chrome — modern CSS, no infra.
DocRaptor is built on the licensed PrinceXML engine, which is reflected in its pricing. Compare a headless-Chrome HTML-to-PDF API priced per document, with screenshots and OG images included.
PDFShift is a focused HTML-to-PDF API. If you also need screenshots, OG images, or PDF merge/watermark, get all five on one key — with idempotency and caching built in.
Compare a modern HTML-to-PDF and screenshot API: headless-Chrome rendering, per-document pricing, idempotency and caching, with Node and Python SDKs.
Puppeteer is excellent, but page.pdf() means you operate Chrome: memory, zombie processes, concurrency and patching. Get the same rendering as a hosted API call.
Playwright's pdf() only works in Chromium, and you still run the browser. Keep Playwright for tests; generate production PDFs with one hosted API call.
WeasyPrint is a fine pure-Python renderer, but it implements its own CSS subset and needs native libraries installed. Render on headless Chrome instead.
jsPDF and html2canvas rasterise the DOM in the browser, producing blurry, unselectable text. Render server-side on headless Chrome for real vector PDFs.