html-pdf Alternative: Generate PDFs from HTML Without the Phantom/wkhtmltopdf Headaches

html-pdf Alternative: Generate PDFs from HTML Without the Phantom/wkhtmltopdf Headaches If you're still using the html-pdf npm package, you've probably hit the wall. 4,000+ stars, zero updates since 2019, and CSS rendering that feels stuck in 2010. Or you're maintaining mPDF, dompdf, or wkhtmltopdf in production — debugging native dependency hell every time you deploy. There's a better way. The Problem: Why html-pdf and Friends Break The html-pdf package (unmaintained since 2019) relies on PhantomJS , a headless browser that's been abandoned for years. It doesn't support modern CSS: CSS Grid? Nope. Flexbox? Partial at best. CSS variables? Forget it. Media queries? Good luck. PHP developers face the same problem with mPDF and dompdf — they're JavaScript-based rendering engines that struggle with anything beyond basic styling. Then there's wkhtmltopdf . Yes, it renders CSS better. But it requires: A native binary installed on your server Qt library dependencies (300MB+) System-level conf