Comparison
TailPDF vs wkhtmltopdf
wkhtmltopdf is built on a frozen 2012 WebKit engine. TailPDF uses current Chromium — modern CSS just works.
| Feature | wkhtmltopdf | TailPDF |
|---|---|---|
| Rendering engine | WebKit (2012, frozen) | Chromium (current) |
| Flexbox | ||
| CSS Grid | ||
| Tailwind CSS | Partial / broken | Full support |
| Google Fonts | Manual download | Automatic |
| Architecture | Local binary | Cloud API |
| Infrastructure | You manage it | Zero |
| Project status | Abandoned (last release 2020) | Active |
When to use wkhtmltopdf
- You need fully offline PDF generation with no external dependencies
- Your documents are simple and don't need modern CSS
- Cost is the only consideration — it's free and open source
When to use TailPDF
- You need Flexbox, CSS Grid, or Tailwind CSS in your PDFs
- You don't want to install and maintain server binaries
- You want an API you can call from any language
Code Comparison
wkhtmltopdf
# Install binary (OS-specific)
sudo apt-get install wkhtmltopdf
# Save HTML to temp file, run command
echo '<div style="display:flex">...</div>' \
> /tmp/doc.html
wkhtmltopdf /tmp/doc.html /tmp/output.pdf
# Flexbox won't render correctlyTailPDF
curl -X POST https://api.tailpdf.com/pdf \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"content": "<div class=\"flex gap-4\">...</div>"}'
# Returns PDF. Flexbox works.