html4pdf vs Playwright
Most teams meet Playwright in their test suite and then notice page.pdf() exists. It works. The surprise is how different a browser in CI feels from a browser in production.
The short answer
Playwright 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.
What Playwright is
Playwright is Microsoft's browser automation library, available for Node, Python, Java and .NET. It drives Chromium, Firefox and WebKit, with better waiting, tracing and debugging than Puppeteer. PDF output is Chromium only, because the other two engines do not expose it.
Side by side
| Playwright | html4pdf | |
|---|---|---|
| Rendering engine | Chromium | Headless Chrome |
| Languages | Node, Python, Java, .NET | Any language with HTTP |
| What you deploy | Your app plus browser binaries | Nothing |
| Install size | Hundreds of megabytes per browser | None |
| In CI | Excellent, this is what it is for | Works, but you are paying per document in tests |
| In production | A long-running browser to supervise, restart and cap | An HTTPS call |
| Beyond PDFs | Testing, scraping, screenshots, tracing | Documents only |
| Cost per document | Your own compute | From $0.033 |
Choose Playwright when
- Playwright is already in your stack and you have somewhere to run it.
- You need to interact with the page before printing: log in, click through, wait for a condition.
- You want screenshots and traces from the same tool.
- Volume is high enough that per-document pricing is the larger cost.
Choose html4pdf when
- The only thing you need from a browser is a PDF.
- Your production environment is serverless, or a container you would rather keep small.
- You write in a language Playwright does not support, or do not want the dependency.
- You would rather not be the person who understands why the browser pool wedged.
See the code
The working example, in the language this decision is being made in.
Playwright: common questions
Can Playwright generate PDFs?
Yes, with page.pdf() in Chromium. Firefox and WebKit do not support it, so the multi-browser advantage does not apply to PDF output.
Playwright or Puppeteer for PDFs?
Playwright, if you are choosing between running one of them yourself. Better API, better waiting, better debugging, and the same Chromium underneath.
Is Playwright hard to run in production?
Harder than in CI. A test run starts a browser and throws it away; a service keeps one alive under load, which means memory caps, restarts and a plan for when a render hangs.
Can I use Playwright in a serverless function?
With difficulty. The browser binaries are large and cold starts are slow, which is why most teams end up running a separate container for it.
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 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.
- 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.