Carbone vs Plumsail Documents
Carbone
carbone.io
Plumsail Documents
plumsail.comSide by side
| Figure | Carbone | Plumsail Documents |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | 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 | 4 |
| Spec score · PDF Creation Software | 9.4 (#1) | 7.3 (#32) |
| Spec score · Document Generation Software | 9.4 (#1) | 7.4 (#19) |
| Spec score · Mail Merge Software | 9.4 (#1) | 7.3 (#23) |
| Spec score · Document Template Management Software | 9.4 (#1) | 7.3 (#19) |
| Spec score · Docs Automation | 9.4 (#2) | 7.4 (#17) |
| Company history | Carbone began in 2013 under Ideolys for the Easilys restaurant product and became independent as CarboneIO SAS in May 2021. | The company timeline lists the launch of Documents and Forms in 2019. |
| Document conversion | Its conversion API handles Office, HTML and Markdown conversion to PDF and supports more than 100 document conversions. | It converts Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or HTML documents to PDF in Power Automate Flow. |
| Integrations | Official connectors cover Airtable, Bubble, Glide, Make, n8n, Ninox, Retool, Zapier, HubSpot, Odoo, Pipedrive, Salesforce, DocuSign and Subnoto. | The integrations page lists Plumsail Forms, SharePoint, Power Automate, Make, Zapier, Airtable, DocuSign, Outlook, and other apps. |
| Purpose | Carbone merges JSON data into document templates and generates files such as PDF, DOCX, XLSX and PPTX. | Plumsail Documents generates documents from templates, sends them by email, collects e-signatures, and saves them to other apps. |
| Support | The Essential plan includes chat support from 9 AM to 6 PM UTC+2, with asynchronous email responses outside those hours. | The company says its support team replies within a day. |
| Template formats | Templates can use formats including DOCX, ODT, ODS, XLSX, XML, Markdown and HTML. | Templates can be PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or HTML. |
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
Plumsail Documents
- CabinetPrice not published
- CustomPriced on request
- DrawerPrice not published
- FolderPrice not published
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.
Plumsail Documents
Plumsail Documents has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.