How to generate a PDF from HTML in Node.js

Option 1: a PDF library (PDFKit, pdfmake)

Libraries draw the PDF by hand from a document model. You get full control and no browser, but you do not get to use HTML or CSS, so you rebuild your layout in the library API. Good for fixed, simple documents, painful for anything that already exists as a web page.

Option 2: Puppeteer

Puppeteer launches headless Chrome, loads your HTML, and calls page.pdf(). The output is excellent because it is a real browser, but you now operate a browser: cold starts, memory growth, crashes under load, and a Chromium binary that does not fit most serverless functions.

Option 3: a render API (recommended for production)

Send the HTML to a hosted renderer and stream the PDF back. You keep the browser-quality output and drop all the operations. It is one fetch with no native dependencies.

const res = await fetch("https://api.pdfpipe.xyz/v1/pdf", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.PDFPIPE_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({ html: "<h1>Hello</h1>", options: { format: "A4" } }),
});
const pdf = Buffer.from(await res.arrayBuffer());

Which to choose

• Fixed, simple layouts with no HTML: a PDF library.
• A few PDFs, full control of the environment, willing to operate Chrome: Puppeteer.
• Production volume, serverless, or you just want it to work: a render API.

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