How to Convert HTML to PDF in Python, Go, PHP, and Node.js (Free & Easy Methods Compared)

Why Convert HTML to PDF?

PDFs are the go-to format for invoices, reports, tables, tickets, or contracts. Most apps eventually need a way to take an HTML template (with your layout, data, and branding) and generate a professional PDF.

There are plenty of open-source ways to do this. Let's look at the most common free HTML-to-PDF options in Python, Go, PHP, and Node.js, and compare how they perform in real-world use cases.

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🚀 Convert HTML to PDF in Python

Python offers a few strong libraries for this:

1. pdfkit (wkhtmltopdf wrapper)

import pdfkit
pdfkit.from_file("example.html", "output.pdf")

• ✅ Works with HTML, URLs, or strings

• ❌ Requires wkhtmltopdf installed

• ⚠️ Can misrender tables with complex row/column spans

2. WeasyPrint

from weasyprint import HTML
HTML("example.html").write_pdf("output.pdf")

• ✅ Pure Python, no extra binary

• ❌ Slower on complex layouts

• ⚠️ Still struggles with table formatting in some edge cases

3. Pyppeteer (Headless Chrome)

import asyncio
from pyppeteer import launch


async def main():
browser = await launch()
page = await browser.newPage()
await page.goto("<https://example.com>")
await page.pdf({"path": "output.pdf"})
await browser.close()

asyncio.run(main())

• ✅ Full CSS and JS rendering (just like Chrome)

• ❌ Heavy dependency (Chromium)

• ⚠️ Known memory leaks in headless Chromium can cause servers to crash under load

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⚡ Convert HTML to PDF in Go

1. go-wkhtmltopdf

pdfg, _ := wkhtmltopdf.NewPDFGenerator()
pdfg.AddPage(wkhtmltopdf.NewPageReader(strings.NewReader("<h1>Hello Go</h1>")))
pdfg.Create()
pdfg.WriteFile("output.pdf")

• ✅ Simple, lightweight

• ❌ Depends on wkhtmltopdf binary

• ⚠️ Same table rendering issues as Python's wkhtmltopdf wrappers

2. chromedp (Headless Chrome)

chromedp.Run(ctx,
    chromedp.Navigate("https://example.com"),
    chromedp.ActionFunc(func(ctx context.Context) error {
        buf, _, err := page.PrintToPDF().Do(ctx)
        return err
    }),
)

• ✅ Accurate, browser-level rendering

• ❌ Requires Chrome, higher memory usage

• ⚠️ Exposed to Chromium's headless memory leaks in production

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🌐 Convert HTML to PDF in PHP

1. Dompdf

$dompdf = new Dompdf();
$dompdf->loadHtml("<h1>Hello World</h1>");
$dompdf->render();
$dompdf->stream("output.pdf");

• ✅ Composer package, easy to install

• ❌ Limited support for advanced CSS

• ⚠️ Table rendering is inconsistent with borders, merged cells, and alignment

2. wkhtmltopdf via exec

exec("wkhtmltopdf example.html output.pdf");

• ✅ Reliable, stable output

• ❌ Requires wkhtmltopdf installed on the server

• ⚠️ Same table rendering issues

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⚙️ Convert HTML to PDF in Node.js

1. Puppeteer (Headless Chrome)

const puppeteer = require("puppeteer");

(async () => {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto("<https://example.com>", { waitUntil: "networkidle0" });
  await page.pdf({ path: "output.pdf", format: "A4" });
  await browser.close();
})();

• ✅ Handles modern HTML, CSS, and JS

• ❌ Heavy, large install size

• ⚠️ Long-running servers hit Chromium headless memory leak issues

2. html-pdf (wkhtmltopdf wrapper)

const pdf = require("html-pdf");
pdf.create("<h1>Hello World</h1>").toFile("./output.pdf", (err, res) => {
  if (err) return console.log(err);
  console.log(res);
});

• ✅ Lightweight alternative

• ❌ Still requires wkhtmltopdf

• ⚠️ Suffers from the same table rendering limitations

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📊 Comparison of Methods

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🧐 The Real-World Drawbacks

Here's what you'll notice once you move beyond toy examples:

• Tables are hard. Almost every free library struggles with HTML tables that have merged rows/columns, nested elements, or advanced styling. If your documents rely heavily on tabular data (think invoices or financial reports), this becomes a real headache.

• Chromium memory leaks are real. Even with modern headless browsers, long-running processes in production environments accumulate memory. While your OS can handle this in desktop Chrome, in headless servers it often causes slowdowns or crashes over time.

• Scaling isn't free. Each PDF generation can consume hundreds of MBs of RAM for even simple documents, which doesn't play nicely when you scale out.

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🔑 Why Use a PDF Conversion API Instead?

For side projects or small apps, the free tools are fine. But if you're building something serious and customer-facing, the drawbacks start adding up:

• Maintaining wkhtmltopdf or Chrome binaries across environments

• Debugging table rendering quirks that throw off invoice layouts

• Restarting workers or containers due to Chromium memory leaks

• Losing time you'd rather spend on your actual application logic

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This is where an API-based approach comes in. With BlazePDF, you send your HTML and get back a pixel-perfect PDF - without worrying about infrastructure, memory leaks, or rendering inconsistencies.

• Reliable uptime and scaling handled for you

• Consistent table rendering and layout accuracy

• No heavy binaries or OS-level dependencies

• Lets you focus on shipping features, not babysitting PDFs

👉 If you're at the stage where PDFs matter to your business but maintaining infrastructure doesn't, BlazePDF is worth a look.