Generate PDFs on Laravel Forge

The Challenge

Laravel Forge gives you powerful server management, but generating PDFs with headless Chrome brings a host of problems:

• Complex installation - Chrome dependencies, sandbox issues, font packages
• Resource hungry - Chrome consumes 500MB+ RAM per instance
• Security concerns - Running a browser on your production server
• Maintenance burden - Chrome updates, memory leaks, zombie processes

You can install Chrome on Forge, but should you?

Why Self-Hosting Chrome Is Painful

Memory Problems

Chrome is designed for desktop use, not server workloads. Each PDF generation:

• Spawns a new browser process (or reuses a leaky one)
• Loads your entire HTML document into memory
• Renders fonts, images, and CSS
• Converts to PDF

On a $20/month Forge server, a few concurrent PDF requests can exhaust your memory and crash your application.

Installation Headaches

Getting Chrome to run on Ubuntu involves:

# The "simple" installation
apt-get install -y chromium-browser
apt-get install -y fonts-liberation fonts-noto-color-emoji
apt-get install -y libx11-xcb1 libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 ...

Then you deal with sandbox errors, missing libraries, and permission issues. Every server rebuild means doing it again.

Security Risks

Running a browser engine on your production server:

• Expands your attack surface
• Can be exploited via malicious HTML input
• Requires keeping Chrome updated for security patches

Why DomPDF Isn't the Answer

Many developers fall back to DomPDF to avoid Chrome, but it can't handle modern CSS:

• No Flexbox - display: flex is ignored
• No Grid - display: grid does nothing
• Broken Tailwind - Most utility classes fail
• Poor fonts - Custom fonts require manual configuration

Your beautiful Tailwind invoices become broken messes.

The TailPDF Solution

TailPDF moves PDF generation off your server entirely. You send HTML, we send back a PDF.

Why it's better than self-hosting:

• Zero server configuration - No Chrome, no dependencies
• Predictable resource usage - Just HTTP requests
• Always updated - We handle Chrome versions and security
• Scales independently - PDF load doesn't affect your app

Quick Start

Install the TailPDF Laravel package via Composer:

composer require mralston/tailpdf

Add your API key to .env:

TAILPDF_API_KEY=your-api-key-here

Generate PDFs from your Blade views:

use Mralston\Tailpdf\Facades\TailPdf;

// Generate a PDF from a Blade view and download
return TailPdf::view('reports.monthly', ['data' => $data])
    ->pdf()
    ->download('report.pdf');

Save to disk:

use Mralston\Tailpdf\Facades\TailPdf;

// Save PDF to storage
TailPdf::view('invoices.show', ['invoice' => $invoice])
    ->pdf()
    ->save('invoices/invoice-' . $invoice->id . '.pdf');

Stream to browser:

use Mralston\Tailpdf\Facades\TailPdf;

// Stream PDF directly to browser
return TailPdf::view('contracts.show', ['contract' => $contract])
    ->pdf()
    ->stream();

Get raw PDF content:

use Mralston\Tailpdf\Facades\TailPdf;

// Get raw PDF bytes for custom handling
$pdfContent = TailPdf::view('certificates.show', ['certificate' => $cert])
    ->pdf()
    ->raw();

// Attach to email, upload to S3, etc.
Mail::to($user)->send(new CertificateMail($pdfContent));

What You Get

• No maintenance - We handle Chrome, you handle your app
• Consistent output - Same PDF every time, no environment differences
• Full Tailwind support - Every utility class, including arbitrary values
• CSS Grid & Flexbox - Modern layouts render perfectly
• Async generation - Process large batches without blocking
• Fast response - Average 400ms, with CSS caching for repeat requests

Free your Forge server from Chrome. Let TailPDF handle the heavy lifting.