PDFPipe is an HTML-to-PDF API. You send a POST request to https://api.pdfpipe.xyz/v1/pdf with a JSON body containing an HTML string or a URL, and receive an application/pdf file in the response. It handles browser rendering in a managed cloud environment, so you do not need to install or maintain any PDF software on your servers.

How do I use the PDFPipe API?

1. Sign up at pdfpipe.xyz to get an API key (format: pp_live_…). 2. POST to https://api.pdfpipe.xyz/v1/pdf with Authorization: Bearer pp_live_your_key and Content-Type: application/json. 3. Set the request body to {"html": " Hello "} or {"url": "https://example.com"} plus an optional "options" object for format, margins, etc. 4. The response body is the raw PDF file. Full reference at https://pdfpipe.xyz/docs.

What programming languages does PDFPipe support?

PDFPipe works with any language that can make an HTTP request. Official SDKs are available for Node.js (npm install pdfpipe-node) and Python (pip install pdfpipe-python). The API also works directly in Go, Java, PHP, Ruby, Rust, C#, Kotlin, Elixir, and others via standard HTTP clients. Framework-specific guides are available at https://pdfpipe.xyz/guides.

What PDF options are available?

Pass an "options" object in the request body. Key options: format (A4, A3, A5, Letter, Legal, Tabloid — default A4), landscape (true/false), margin (CSS length or object with top/bottom/left/right), print_background (true/false), scale (0.1 to 2.0), page_ranges (e.g. "1-3, 5"), header_html, footer_html, inject_css, wait_until (load, domcontentloaded, networkidle0, networkidle2), wait_ms, timeout_ms (1000 to 60000, default 30000), pdf_a (true/false for PDF/A-1b). Full reference at https://pdfpipe.xyz/docs#options.

How much does PDFPipe cost?

Hobby: free, 500 documents per month, no credit card required. Starter: $19/month, 3,000 documents. Growth: $49/month, 15,000 documents. Scale: $149/month, 50,000 documents. Enterprise: custom volume and SLA. Flat pricing: one document counts as one document with no credit conversion.

What is the PDFPipe API endpoint?

The main render endpoint is POST https://api.pdfpipe.xyz/v1/pdf. Additional endpoints: POST /v1/pdf/batch (batch rendering up to 100 items), POST /v1/pdf/merge (merge PDFs), GET /v1/me (check key and usage), GET /v1/documents (list stored PDFs), POST /v1/demo (playground, no key required). Full endpoint list at https://pdfpipe.xyz/docs#endpoints.

Can I not just run Puppeteer or wkhtmltopdf myself?

You can, but running a browser in production means managing memory limits, system font availability, concurrency queues, version pinning, and on-call incidents when it crashes. PDFPipe handles the rendering infrastructure so your team ships product code instead. The API also includes SSRF protection so untrusted HTML cannot reach internal services.

Does PDFPipe support AI agents via MCP?

Yes. Install pdfpipe-mcp-server (npm install pdfpipe-mcp-server), set PDFPIPE_API_KEY, and point any MCP-compatible agent at it. The pdfpipe_generate_pdf tool becomes available for the agent to generate PDFs in a single tool call. Details at https://pdfpipe.xyz/mcp.

Comparison

A PhantomJS alternative that is actually maintained

PhantomJS was the go-to headless browser for PDF generation in Node.js and Python projects throughout the early 2010s. Its maintainer stepped down in 2018 and the project has received no security patches since. If your codebase still pulls in phantom, node-phantom, phantom-html-to-pdf, or html-pdf from npm, all of those are wrappers around the same abandoned binary. PDFPipe replaces the entire stack with a single HTTP call.

How they compare

	PDFPipe	PhantomJS
Maintenance status	Actively maintained	Abandoned since 2018, no security patches
Browser engine	Full modern browser engine	WebKit 534 (circa 2012)
CSS support	Grid, flexbox, CSS variables, web fonts	Partial CSS 2.1, limited CSS 3
Deployment	REST API, zero servers to run	Binary process you install and host
URL-to-PDF	POST a URL, get a PDF back	Requires scripting a page.open() call
SSRF protection	Sandboxed, blocks private and metadata IPs	None
Document storage	Optional hosted storage with signed URLs	None
Pricing	500 free documents a month, flat per-document after	Free but you pay for infrastructure

Before and after

A typical PhantomJS PDF script spins up a child process, writes a script file, waits for it to exit, and reads the output. The PDFPipe version is one fetch call.

Before (phantom-html-to-pdf)

import pdf from "phantom-html-to-pdf";

pdf()("<html><body><h1>Invoice</h1></body></html>", (err, result) => {
  if (err) throw err;
  result.stream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream("invoice.pdf"));
  result.process.kill();
});

After (PDFPipe)

const res = await fetch("https://api.pdfpipe.xyz/v1/pdf", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { Authorization: "Bearer pp_live_your_key" },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    html: "<html><body><h1>Invoice</h1></body></html>",
    options: { format: "A4" },
  }),
});
fs.writeFileSync("invoice.pdf", Buffer.from(await res.arrayBuffer()));

Why the npm wrappers are all deprecated

Every PhantomJS npm package (html-pdf, phantom-html-to-pdf, node-phantom, phantom) shells out to the same PhantomJS binary. That binary has not received a security patch since April 2018, does not support modern Node.js ARM builds, and frequently triggers antivirus flags in CI environments. The wrapper maintainers themselves recommend migrating away. PDFPipe removes the binary entirely: your app makes an HTTP request and receives a PDF.

When to stay with a local renderer

If your documents contain highly confidential data that must never leave your network, a self-hosted renderer makes sense. In that case, look at Puppeteer or Playwright with Chromium rather than PhantomJS. For everything else, PDFPipe handles rendering, scaling, and infrastructure so you do not have to.

Try PDFPipe on the live playground with no signup, then read the docs.

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