html4pdf vs WeasyPrint
This comparison is unusually easy to settle, because the deciding question has a yes or no answer: does your page need JavaScript to look finished?
The short answer
If 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.
What WeasyPrint is
WeasyPrint renders HTML and CSS to PDF in pure Python. It has the best support for CSS Paged Media of anything in that ecosystem: running headers and footers, page counters, named pages, margin boxes. For print-shaped documents written as print documents, it often produces better results than a browser does.
Side by side
| WeasyPrint | html4pdf | |
|---|---|---|
| Rendering engine | Its own, written in Python | Headless Chrome |
| JavaScript | Not executed at all | Runs before the page is captured |
| CSS Paged Media | Excellent: margin boxes, counters, named pages | Good: margins, format, headers via options |
| Modern layout CSS | Flexbox and grid supported, with gaps against Chrome | Whatever Chrome does |
| Install | pip, plus system libraries such as Pango | Nothing |
| Where it runs | In your process, offline | An HTTPS call |
| Languages | Python | Any |
| Cost | Free | From $0.033 per document |
| Speed | Fast, no browser to start | Three to five seconds including the round trip |
Choose WeasyPrint when
- Your document is static HTML and CSS: invoices, statements, reports rendered from a template.
- You need real print features: repeating table headers, page X of Y, margin boxes.
- You are in Python and want no outbound calls and no per-document cost.
- Your documents must stay inside your own process.
Choose html4pdf when
- Something on the page is drawn by JavaScript: a chart, a map, a widget.
- The document is an existing web page, built for screens, that must come out looking the same.
- You are not writing Python.
- You would rather not add Pango, cairo and their friends to a container image.
See the code
The working example, in the language this decision is being made in.
WeasyPrint: common questions
Does WeasyPrint support JavaScript?
No, and this is by design rather than an omission. It parses HTML and CSS and lays out the result. Anything a script would have drawn is simply not in the output.
Is WeasyPrint better than headless Chrome for PDFs?
For documents designed as documents, often yes: its CSS Paged Media support is better than Chrome's. For reproducing a web page, no, because it is not the browser the page was built for.
Can I use WeasyPrint for charts?
Only if the chart is already an image or inline SVG by the time WeasyPrint sees it. Render it server side first, or use a browser-based renderer.
Which is faster?
WeasyPrint, usually, because there is no browser to start and no network round trip.
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 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.
- 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.