Gotenberg
App in the BluixApps catalog
What it is
Gotenberg is a developer-friendly API for PDF generation — HTML → PDF, Markdown → PDF, Office docs → PDF, image conversion, PDF merging. Stateless service powered by headless Chromium + LibreOffice. Drop into any backend that needs server-side PDF rendering.
The "PDF microservice" — designed to be called by other apps, not used directly.
What it's for
- Invoice / report PDF generation — HTML/CSS templates → branded PDFs
- Office doc conversion — DOCX/XLSX/PPTX → PDF for downloads
- Markdown rendering — docs → PDF for distribution
- URL screenshots — render web pages as PDF
- Bulk document conversion — batch HTML → PDF via API
Who it's for
- Backend developers building apps that generate PDFs
- SaaS engineering teams needing branded PDF exports
- Document workflow automation orgs handling many formats
- Internal tools auto-generating reports
- Multi-tenant apps rendering customer-branded PDFs
Why teams pick Gotenberg over alternatives
- MIT license — fully open
- Stateless API — easy to scale horizontally
- Multi-format input — HTML, Markdown, Office, images, URLs
- High fidelity — Chromium-based rendering matches browser exactly
- Active development — frequent releases
- Docker-native — zero install friction
Integrations
- Chromium — HTML/CSS rendering, URL screenshots
- LibreOffice headless — Office document conversion
- PDF engines — pdfcpu / qpdf for merge/manipulate
- API clients — Python, JS, Go, PHP community libraries
- Frameworks — Laravel, Symfony, Rails, Django integrations
- CI/CD — generate PDFs in pipeline for testing
- Webhook callbacks — async result delivery (Pro feature)
Notable users & community
- 8k+ GitHub stars
- Used by SaaS teams worldwide for backend PDF generation
- Active GitHub Discussions
- Backed by Julien Neuhart (single maintainer with commercial offering)
- Standard tool in microservices architectures needing PDF
Tips & operations
- No auth by default — front with nginx + auth_request for production
- Resource limits per request — large HTML can spike memory
- Async via webhook — for slow conversions, use webhook callback
- Custom fonts — bind-mount font directory for branded PDF rendering
- PDF compression — Gotenberg supports output compression
- Chrome flags — pass via API for special rendering (e.g., dark mode)
What we ship in BluixApps
- Docker image:
gotenberg/gotenberg:8 - Port 3030 exposed (mapped from container 3000)
- Stateless — no volume needed
- Auth at reverse proxy (no built-in auth)
- HTTPS via Let's Encrypt reverse proxy
- Health endpoint
/healthfor monitoring - No backup needed (stateless service)
Get this app — pick a BluixApps plan
Same catalog. Scaling tenant isolation, white-label and support tier.
| Tier | Tenants | Catalog | Support | White-label | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stacks | 1 | 19 curated stacks | Standard | — | $19/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Starter | 10 | Full catalog | Standard | +$15–25/mo | $49/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Pro | 25 | Full catalog | Priority bugfix | +$15–25/mo | $149/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Growth | 100 | Full catalog | Priority bugfix | +$15–25/mo | $349/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Scale | 500 | Full catalog | 7-day window | +$15–25/mo | $799/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Enterprise | Unlimited | Full catalog | Priority 7-day | Bundled | $1,499/mo | DetailDeploy |