Carbone vs PDFMonkey
Carbone
carbone.io
PDFMonkey
pdfmonkey.ioSide by side
| Figure | Carbone | PDFMonkey |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | €5/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 18 | 12 |
| Spec score · PDF Creation Software | 9.4 (#1) | 8.4 (#7) |
| Spec score · Document Generation Software | 9.4 (#1) | 8.5 (#7) |
| Spec score · Mail Merge Software | 9.4 (#1) | 8.5 (#6) |
| Spec score · Document Template Management Software | 9.4 (#1) | 8.4 (#9) |
| Spec score · Docs Automation | 9.4 (#2) | 8.5 (#5) |
| Company profile | LinkedIn lists CarboneIO as a 2–10 employee information-technology services company headquartered in Nantes and founded in 2021. | LinkedIn lists PDFMonkey as a privately held Paris technology company founded in 2019 with 2–10 employees. |
| Hosting | The pricing page offers Cloud, On-Premise, Private Cloud and AWS deployment options. | PDFMonkey infrastructure is hosted on Amazon Web Services in the EU (Paris) region. |
| Integrations | Official connectors cover Airtable, Bubble, Glide, Make, n8n, Ninox, Retool, Zapier, HubSpot, Odoo, Pipedrive, Salesforce, DocuSign and Subnoto. | Official integrations and connectors include Zapier, Make, n8n, Workato, Bubble, Glide and InvoiceBerry. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.8 out of 5 from 58 reviews. | 0 out of 5 from 0 reviews |
| Rating on GetApp | 4.8 out of 5 from 14 reviews. | 0.0 out of 5 from 0 reviews |
| Rating on Trustpilot | 4.7 out of 5 from 49 reviews. | 3.4 out of 5 from 1 review |
| SDKs | Official SDK documentation is provided for Node.js, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Go, Java and Rust. | PDFMonkey publishes official Ruby and Node.js SDKs; the Node package supports Node 20+, Bun, Deno, and edge runtimes. |
| Security | Carbone says its cloud infrastructure is hosted in France by OVHcloud and that it conducts annual security audits. | PDFMonkey states that connections use HTTPS/TLS, payload data is encrypted at rest, generated files are private S3 objects, and download URLs expire after one hour. |
| Self-hosting | On-premise distribution is a standalone binary or Docker image and embeds the template engine, API server and Studio. | The product documentation describes a hosted service and provides no self-hosted PDFMonkey deployment package. |
| Support | The Essential plan includes chat support from 9 AM to 6 PM UTC+2, with asynchronous email responses outside those hours. | Support is provided through in-app chat and [email protected], with typical replies within a few hours during Central European business hours. |
| What it does | Carbone merges JSON data with user-designed templates to generate PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, ODS, HTML and other files. | PDFMonkey turns JSON data and reusable templates into PDF or image documents through a web dashboard, REST API, or no-code integrations. |
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
PDFMonkey
- 30-day TrialFree
- 30-day TrialFree
- FreeFree
- FreeFree
- Starter€5 a month
- Starter€5 a month
- Pro€15 a month
- Pro€15 a month
- Pro+€60 a month
- Pro+€60 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.
PDFMonkey
PDFMonkey is a cloud document-generation API that turns templates and dynamic data into files. Templates can be built in a visual drag-and-drop editor or written in HTML, CSS, and Liquid; JSON data can be sent through the REST API to generate documents. Its Chrome-based renderer supports JavaScript, external fonts, images, charts, and other web technologies. Outputs include PDF, PNG, WebP, and JPG, and bulk generation from datasets is supported. Connectors include Zapier, Make, n8n, Workato, Bubble, Glide, and InvoiceBerry; developer tools include Ruby and Node.js SDKs and webhooks. API traffic uses HTTPS/TLS, dynamic data is stored in encrypted database columns, and generated files are kept in private S3 buckets with one-hour presigned URLs. PDFMonkey states that it has no formal SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification. The free plan allows 20 documents per month with one-day retention and a 30-second generation limit, and excludes external images, fonts, CSS, and JavaScript. Paid plans start at €5/mo.