Looking for a managed PDF API to replace Gotenberg? Same Chromium-based PDF quality, no Docker, no containers to scale, no 3am outages. Just one API call.
# Gotenberg: Docker + API call docker run -p 3000:3000 gotenberg/gotenberg:7 curl http://localhost:3000/forms/chromium/convert/html \ -F files=@index.html -o output.pdf # DocuQueue: Just the API call curl -X POST https://docuqueue.com/api/v1/convert-html \ -H "api-key: wp2_your_key" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"html": "<h1>Hello</h1>"}' -o output.pdf
Upload any fillable PDF — DocuQueue detects fields, maps your data, and fills every field automatically. Works with W-9s, I-9s, W-4s, and any government or business form.
Gotenberg does one thing well: HTML to PDF via Docker. But you're the one running it. Scaling containers, patching Chromium, handling outages at 2am. DocuQueue is the managed PDF API that does the same thing, except we handle all of that.
Sign up, get a key, make an API call. That's it.
No capacity planning. Auto-scales behind the scenes.
Not a GitHub issue that goes unanswered for months.
Upload your own Word documents as templates. Fill them with data via the API. No HTML or CSS required.
Fill in PDF form fields programmatically. Gotenberg has no built-in form filling support.
Convert any URL to PDF in one call. Gotenberg requires you to fetch and pass HTML yourself.
Gotenberg runs in Docker. That means you're deploying containers, managing resources, handling restarts when Chromium crashes, and scaling when traffic spikes.
DocuQueue is one API call. No containers, no clusters, no 3am pages.
1. Install Docker 2. Pull gotenberg image 3. Configure volumes 4. Set up networking 5. Configure reverse proxy 6. Set up monitoring 7. Manage updates 8. Handle scaling
Self-hosting Gotenberg means you're responsible for Chromium updates, security patches, and compatibility issues.
DocuQueue is maintained by a team. The rendering engine stays current. You just make API calls.
1. Sign up 2. Get API key 3. Make API call Done.
Gotenberg is sync-only. You call it, you wait. Need async? Build your own queue, your own storage, your own retry logic.
DocuQueue has async job processing built in. Submit, poll, download. Done.
# Submit job curl -X POST https://docuqueue.com/api/v1/convert-html \ -H "api-key: YOUR_KEY" \ -d '{"html": "..."}' # {"job_id": "abc123", "status": "queued"} # Download when ready curl https://docuqueue.com/api/v1/download/abc123 \ -H "api-key: YOUR_KEY" -o output.pdf
| Feature | Gotenberg | DocuQueue |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Self-hosted (Docker) | Hosted and managed API |
| Setup | Deploy Docker containers | One API call |
| Scaling | Manual | Automatic |
| Maintenance | You maintain | We maintain |
| Support | Community | Dedicated team |
| Feature | Gotenberg | DocuQueue |
|---|---|---|
| PDF rendering | Chromium-based | Chromium-based |
| HTML to PDF | Supported | Supported |
| URL to PDF | Not built-in | Built-in |
| PDF form filling | Not supported | Built-in |
| DOCX templates | Not supported | Upload and fill |
| Async workflows | Build your own | Built-in job queue |
| Batch processing | DIY | Multi-URL per request |
| Cost | Gotenberg | DocuQueue |
|---|---|---|
| Software license | Free (MIT) | Free tier (25 credits/mo) |
| Infrastructure | $40-200/month (Docker host) | Included |
| DevOps time | Ongoing (scaling, patches, monitoring) | None |
| True monthly cost | $200-500+ (infra + engineering time) | $0-49/month for most teams |
When you self-host Gotenberg, security is your problem. Most default configurations have real risks that matter in production.
The standard Gotenberg Docker image runs Chromium as root. This means any vulnerability in Chromium or Gotenberg's code could give an attacker root-level access to your container and potentially your host system.
For production use, you need to:
DocuQueue handles all of this for you. Our infrastructure runs with least-privilege principles, automated patching, and continuous security monitoring.
No credit card required. Get your API key in seconds.
// Before (Gotenberg) const response = await fetch( 'http://localhost:3000/forms/chromium/convert/html', { method: 'POST', body: formData } ); // After (DocuQueue) const response = await fetch( 'https://docuqueue.com/api/v1/convert-html', { method: 'POST', headers: { 'api-key': API_KEY }, body: JSON.stringify({ html: '<h1>Hello</h1>' }) } );
Delete your Gotenberg containers and stop managing servers.
Same PDF quality, zero maintenance.
Yes. Gotenberg is MIT-licensed and free to use. However, running it in production means paying for Docker hosting, allocating 512MB to 1GB of RAM per Chromium instance, configuring monitoring, and spending engineering time on scaling and updates. Most teams spend more on infrastructure than a managed API costs.
Replace your multipart/form-data POST with a JSON POST to DocuQueue. Your HTML stays the same since both use Chromium for rendering, so the output matches. The main change is sending HTML as JSON instead of uploading an index.html file. Most teams complete the migration in under an hour.
No. DocuQueue focuses on HTML to PDF and PDF form filling. If you need Word, Excel, or PowerPoint conversion, Gotenberg is the better choice since it includes LibreOffice for over 100 document formats.
Gotenberg's single Chromium instance handles up to 6 parallel operations. LibreOffice can only run one operation at a time due to its lock mechanism. Scaling means adding more containers behind a load balancer. DocuQueue auto-scales with no containers to configure.
No. We're independent. We built DocuQueue for teams that want Gotenberg's rendering quality without the infrastructure burden. Both tools serve different audiences.
Gotenberg itself is free, but production costs include: a Docker host or cloud instance ($40-200/month), 512MB-1GB RAM per Chromium process, load balancer configuration, uptime monitoring, SSL certificates, and ongoing DevOps time for patches and scaling. A single misconfigured container can silently drop PDF requests.
Yes. DocuQueue supports PDF form filling, which Gotenberg does not. You can upload a fillable PDF, submit the field values via API, and get a filled PDF back. This is useful for contracts, applications, and government forms.
Not natively. Gotenberg requires you to pass HTML content. To convert a URL to PDF, you would need to fetch the HTML yourself, then pass it to Gotenberg. DocuQueue has built-in URL-to-PDF conversion: just pass the URL and get a PDF back in one API call.
Gotenberg runs Chromium inside Docker, and the default configuration runs as root. This means any Chromium vulnerability could give an attacker root access to your container. For production use, you should configure a non-root user, restrict network access, and keep the Chromium image updated. DocuQueue handles all security hardening for you.
DocuQueue offers a free tier with 25 credits per month, so you can start with zero cost. Paid plans start at a low monthly rate with per-credit overages. Self-hosting Gotenberg means paying for cloud infrastructure, DevOps time, and opportunity cost of your engineers managing servers instead of building product. For most teams doing fewer than 10,000 PDFs per month, DocuQueue is cheaper.
Headless Chrome library for PDF generation. DocuQueue wraps it in a managed API with templates and batch processing.
Deprecated WebKit-based converter. DocuQueue uses modern Chromium with full CSS3 and JavaScript support.
HTML-to-PDF API at $49/mo. DocuQueue offers more features including URL conversion, templates, and form filling at a lower price.
Fill in PDF forms programmatically. See how DocuQueue compares to Gotenberg for form filling workflows.
50 free credits. No credit card required. Live in 2 minutes.
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