Carbone vs HTML2PDF
Carbone
carbone.ioHTML2PDF
html2pdf.frSide by side
| Figure | Carbone | HTML2PDF |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 18 | 1 |
| Spec score · PDF Creation Software | 9.4 (#1) | 7.4 (#24) |
| Integrations | Official connectors cover Airtable, Bubble, Glide, Make, n8n, Ninox, Retool, Zapier, HubSpot, Odoo, Pipedrive, Salesforce, DocuSign and Subnoto. | The project README identifies TCPDF as its PDF engine and Composer as its installation method. |
| Purpose | Carbone merges JSON data into document templates and generates files such as PDF, DOCX, XLSX and PPTX. | HTML2PDF is a PHP library for generating PDF documents from valid HTML 4.01. |
| Support | The Essential plan includes chat support from 9 AM to 6 PM UTC+2, with asynchronous email responses outside those hours. | The website directs questions to its forum, while the project README directs questions and bug reports to GitHub Issues. |
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.