Dropflow, a CSS layout engine for node or <canvas>
For the last 5 years I've been working on a layout engine that targets CSS2 and some more modern properties. Live demo: https://chearon.github.io/dropflow/ It matches browsers in all cases I can find where they agree, and it's fast. It supports `position`, `inline-block`, `z-index`, and complex properties like `float` and `vertical-align`. It doesn't support high-level layout like flexbox or grid yet, but you can get intrinsics to easily divide space yourself and paint multiple layout trees. It has a great text layout implementation, and supporting non-Latin scripts is a…
In plain words
Dropflow is a CSS layout engine that runs on Node.js or canvas, implementing CSS2 properties and select modern features. It handles positioning, inline-block display, z-index, floats, and vertical-align, with particularly strong text layout support including non-Latin scripts. The engine prioritizes accuracy, matching browser behavior across test cases, and performance. It does not yet support flexbox or grid but provides intrinsics for custom space division and multi-tree layout. It is designed for server-side rich text rendering and canvas-based applications.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
For the last 5 years I've been working on a layout engine that targets CSS2 and some more modern properties. Live demo: https://chearon.github.io/dropflow/ It matches browsers in all cases I can find where they agree, and it's fast. It supports `position`, `inline-block`, `z-index`, and complex properties like `float` and `vertical-align`. It doesn't support high-level layout like flexbox or grid yet, but you can get intrinsics to easily divide space yourself and paint multiple layout trees. It has a great text layout implementation, and supporting non-Latin scripts is a top priority. I've wanted this to exist as far back as 2013, and the desire kept coming up: for a way to get detailed intrinsics, for high quality rich text layout to canvas and SVG, and for server-side rich text. We currently use it in CellEngine for our new canvas-based spreadsheet library to layout text in hundreds of thousands of cells, and will be using it soon to render PDFs with thousands of pages in a few seconds.
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