Carbone vs CUPS-PDF
Carbone
carbone.ioCUPS-PDF
cups-pdf.deSide by side
| Figure | Carbone | CUPS-PDF |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 18 | 1 |
| Spec score · PDF Creation Software | 9.4 (#1) | 8.0 (#13) |
| Headquarters | Bellevigny, France | Randersacker, Germany |
| Integrations | Official connectors cover Airtable, Bubble, Glide, Make, n8n, Ninox, Retool, Zapier, HubSpot, Odoo, Pipedrive, Salesforce, DocuSign and Subnoto. | Documented client setups include UNIX clients and queues receiving input through Samba or Netatalk for Windows, OS/2, or Mac OS. |
| Purpose | Carbone merges JSON data into document templates and generates files such as PDF, DOCX, XLSX and PPTX. | CUPS-PDF creates PDF files in a heterogeneous network by providing a PDF printer on a central fileserver. |
| Support | The Essential plan includes chat support from 9 AM to 6 PM UTC+2, with asynchronous email responses outside those hours. | The maker invites comments, suggestions, and bug reports by email to Volker C. Behr. |
Plans
Carbone
- Cloud FreeFree
- FreeFree
- On-Premise CommunityFree
- On-Premise FreeFree
- Amazon Web Services$0.15, paid once
- Cloud Essential$29 a month
- Essential€29 a month
- Cloud Essential Plus$95 a month
- Essential Plus€95 a month
- Advanced€159 a month
In their own words
Carbone
Carbone merges JSON data into document templates to generate files such as PDF, DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX. Templates can use formats including DOCX, ODT, ODS, XLSX, XML, Markdown, and HTML. Its conversion API handles more than 100 formats and supports LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, and Chromium. API access and bulk generation are listed, with Cloud, On-Premise, Private Cloud, and AWS deployment options. The pricing page lists free Cloud and On-Premise plans, plus a free 30-day trial for self-hosted On-Premise use. Cloud Essential costs $29.00 per month; documents are counted for each 1 MB of injected JSON and images, and additional documents beyond a plan allowance are invoiced separately. Carbone says Cloud stores templates for reuse but does not retain submitted JSON or generated documents beyond what rendering and delivery require. It says it has no access to customer templates, data, or generated documents in on-premise deployments. The service also offers an MCP server and an open-source Carbone Skill for connecting AI assistants and generating templates. Its listed platform options include API, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, web, and Windows.