Carbone vs MakePDF
Carbone
carbone.io
MakePDF
makepdf.orgSide by side
| Figure | Carbone | MakePDF |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $12.50/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 18 | 6 |
| Spec score · PDF Creation Software | 9.4 (#1) | 7.3 (#30) |
| Headquarters | Bellevigny, France | RM 702 7/F Kowloon Building, 555 Nathan Rd |
| Integrations | Official connectors cover Airtable, Bubble, Glide, Make, n8n, Ninox, Retool, Zapier, HubSpot, Odoo, Pipedrive, Salesforce, DocuSign and Subnoto. | The documentation describes embedding the Designer, Form, and Viewer components into an application. |
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
MakePDF
- 10000 Credits$9.99, paid once
- 30000 Credits$19.99, paid once
- Pro PDF Tools — Monthly$39.99 a month
- 100000 Credits$49.99, paid once
- Pro PDF Tools — Quarterly$59.99 a month
- Pro PDF Tools — Yearly$149.99 a year
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.