nowfound

Dev tools · May 29, 2018

TA

ThePDFApi, a Chrome Based PDF Generation API Hosted on AWS

Hello HN! It kept surprising me how much of a hassle it is to generate a PDF with decent HTML5 rendering from my SaaS apps. I tried several free libs and APIs but ended up with botched rendering a lot of times. So I set out to simplify this chore by creating an AWS hosted HTML to PDF conversion API that's based on Chrome. This API will allow a dev to just send the HTML to our API and get a PDF in response without having to worry about running and managing Chrome somewhere in their infra. I just finished the first version of my landing page and hosted pdf generation API…

ThePDFApi, a Chrome Based PDF Generation API Hosted on AWS launched on May 29, 2018 with 41 votes, #895 of 2,986 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches.

Alternatives

In plain words

ThePDFApi is an AWS-hosted API that converts HTML to PDF using Chrome rendering. It's designed for software developers who need reliable PDF generation from their applications without managing their own Chrome infrastructure. Users send HTML to the API and receive a rendered PDF in response, avoiding the rendering issues common with free libraries and other conversion tools.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

In the maker’s words, at launch

Hello HN! It kept surprising me how much of a hassle it is to generate a PDF with decent HTML5 rendering from my SaaS apps. I tried several free libs and APIs but ended up with botched rendering a lot of times. So I set out to simplify this chore by creating an AWS hosted HTML to PDF conversion API that's based on…

Does a similar job

all alternatives →
  • Pdf-Bot, an API/CLI for Generating PDFs Using Headless Chrome2017 · github.com · ▲235

    🤖 A Node queue API for generating PDFs using headless Chrome. Comes with a CLI, S3 storage and webhooks for notifying subscribers about generated PDFs - esbenp/pdf-bot

  • PDFShift2018 · pdfshift.io · ▲386

    Convert any HTML to PDF with a single POST request.

  • PA
    PDF API – Generate, convert, and modify PDF documents2022 · ▲204

    Hi HN, Arek here. We’re super excited to officially launch PSPDFKit API [1]. PSPDFKit API is a collection of HTTP APIs that enable you to convert, generate, and edit documents without running any service on your infrastructure. What differentiates our API from others is that you can chain together multiple “actions” as part of a single API request. For example, you can convert, OCR, watermark, edit, and flatten a document — all in one call. Available actions [2]: - PDF Generator - PDF Converter - Image Converter - OCR - Watermark - Merge - Split - Duplicate - Delete - Flatten Our…

  • WebPDF2024 · ▲103

    Simple PDF API & web toolkit

  • Ready-to-use API to convert any web page to PDF using headless Chrome2017 · apify.com · ▲129

    Loads a web page in headless Chrome using Puppeteer and prints it to PDF. The input is a JSON object and output is a PDF file.

  • PlutoPDF2021 · ▲110

    A URL to PDF converter wrapped behind a simple API.

Questions this answers

More dev tools this month

the category →
  • /dev/null▲481

    a social network for devs

    Dev tools · 2d ago · dev-null.sh

  • Whiteboard (YC W26) – an open-source IDE for thoughtful software design▲423

    open-source IDE for thoughtful software design. Contribute to devdotfast/whiteboard development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Dev tools · 27d ago · github.com

  • Reladraw – A diagram language where you decide where to place things▲411

    Contribute to reladraw/reladraw development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Dev tools · 25d ago · github.com

  • OpenBot▲362

    Grok Bot alternative: free, local, open-source, multiplayer

    Dev tools · 22d ago · openbot.run

  • Talanoa▲341

    Hi HN, I’m a fullstack developer, and honestly, I’ve lost count of how many side projects I’ve worked on over the years. But one idea kept coming back to me: a different kind of email client. It first came to me in 2014: “What if we could handle emails more like conversations?” Every year, I’d revisit this concept in my “Build Notes.” Ten years later, no one had built exactly what I had in mind — so I finally decided to do it myself. That’s how Talanoa was born. I wanted something focused on people, not timelines. I was tired of marking messages as unread just to remember to reply later, or…

    Dev tools · 20d ago · talanoa.email

  • CoreSpeed▲332

    One MCP for everything your agents need: apps, memory, tools

    Dev tools · 27d ago · corespeed.io

Source: Show HN post ↗ · launch text quoted in part

Launched alongside, May 2018

the whole month →
  • Google Duplex▲1,447

    An AI assisstant that can talk on the phone 🤖

    AI · 2018 · research.google

  • Lobe▲1,236

    Visual tool for building custom deep learning models

    AI · 2018 · github.com

  • Screely▲1,099

    Instantly turn screenshots into beautiful images

    Growth · 2018 · screely.com

  • Fugue▲1,000

    Free stock music for your videos, games and UI

    Growth · 2018 · icons8.com

  • Spirit▲754

    The animation tool for the web.

    Dev tools · 2018 · spiritapp.io

  • Google Trends▲700

    A new experience to explore what the world is searching 🔎📈📊

    Life & fun · 2018 · trends.google.com