DocRaptor runs the commercial Prince engine for print-grade, compliant documents. HTML to Image renders the page the way Chrome does, at a fraction of the per-document price.
Disclosure: we built HTML to Image. We've kept this comparison honest because the alternative is search results full of low-effort listicles. Competitor pricing and features were checked on DocRaptor's public site in July 2026.
| Feature | DocRaptor | HTML to Image |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan price | $15 / 125 documents | $9 / 1,000 credits |
| Free tier | 5 documents / month, unlimited test docs | 25 renders / month, no card |
| Rendering engine | Prince (paged-media specialist) | Current Chrome |
| CSS grid support | Not yet supported | Yes, plus flexbox and modern CSS |
| Page control | Headers, footers, page numbers, sizes | A4 portrait, automatic pagination only |
| Accessible PDFs | Tagged PDFs (WCAG 2.0, ISO-14289) | Selectable text, no tagging |
| Compliance | SOC2 and HIPAA | Not offered |
| Image output | No (PDF and XLS/XLSX only) | PNG from HTML, URLs and templates |
| Named templates | No | 25 |
| Best for | paged, compliant documents with print-grade control | invoices, receipts and reports that match the browser |
Stay with DocRaptor when documents are the product and print rules apply. Prince has been doing paged media since 2003, and DocRaptor exposes the lot: headers and footers, page numbers, custom page sizes, footnotes, columns, cross-references, PDF forms, watermarks and password controls. Add tagged accessible output to WCAG 2.0 and ISO-14289, XLS/XLSX generation and SOC2 plus HIPAA compliance, and there are jobs where DocRaptor is simply the only sensible answer. We concede all of it.
Switch to HTML to Image when the document just needs to look like your page and arrive cheaply. Prince does not yet support CSS Grid; Chrome obviously does, along with every other property your front end already uses. An invoice, receipt or report that renders correctly in the browser renders identically here with one format parameter, at $9 for 1,000 renders against $15 for 125. And when the same design needs to appear as a PNG in an email body or dashboard, the identical request without the format field does that, something DocRaptor does not offer. The HTML to PDF API page states the scope plainly.
Chrome-faithful CSS. Grid, flexbox, custom properties, modern colour functions: if Chrome renders it, the PDF shows it. DocRaptor documents its Prince engine as supporting flexbox but not yet CSS Grid, so grid-based layouts need reworking before they render there.
Price per document. $9 buys 1,000 renders here; $15 buys 125 documents there, and the gap persists up the ladder ($75 for 1,250 documents against $25 for 3,000 renders). For invoices and receipts produced in volume, that is an order-of-magnitude difference. See pricing.
Images from the same key. The templates, HTML and Screenshot endpoints all return PNGs as readily as PDFs. DocRaptor produces PDFs and Excel files only, so image work means a second service.
Paged-media control. Running headers and footers, page numbers and counters, named pages, page floats, footnotes and cross-references. If the deliverable reads like a book or a formal report, Prince was built for exactly that and Chrome-based rendering was not.
Accessibility and compliance. Tagged PDFs to WCAG 2.0, Section 508 and ISO-14289, PDF forms from HTML forms, SOC2 and HIPAA compliance and encryption controls. Regulated industries should not look past this.
Unlimited test documents. Every plan, including free, renders watermarked test output without limits, which makes development and CI runs free. Our free tier is 25 real renders a month.
# DocRaptor (HTML to PDF, test mode)
curl -u your-docraptor-key: https://api.docraptor.com/docs \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
"type": "pdf",
"document_content": "<h1>Invoice #1042</h1>",
"test": true
}'# HTML to Image (HTML to PDF)
curl -X POST https://app.html2img.com/api/html \
-H 'X-API-Key: your-key-here' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
"html": "<h1>Invoice #1042</h1>",
"format": "pdf"
}'
Three concrete differences. Auth moves from basic auth (API key as username) to an X-API-Key header. The body fields rename: document_content becomes html, and type: "pdf" becomes format: "pdf". And the response changes shape: DocRaptor streams the PDF binary back, while HTML to Image returns a JSON envelope whose url points at the file on the CDN. Any @page rules and print stylesheets in your DocRaptor documents will not carry over; rendering here uses screen CSS, as the format docs explain.
There is none for volume rendering: HTML to Image is cheaper per document at every published tier, usually by more than a factor of ten. The comparison only tilts back when DocRaptor's unlimited test documents offset development costs, or when the feature set (tagging, compliance, page control) is the requirement, at which point price is not really the question. If your documents are simple but you still want more PDF options than we offer, the PDFShift comparison sits between the two.
No. DocRaptor, through the Prince engine, gives you headers and footers, page numbers and counters, custom page sizes and orientation, page breaks, footnotes, cross-references and PDF bookmarks. HTML to Image paginates onto A4 portrait automatically and offers none of those controls. For report-style documents with running heads, DocRaptor is the right tool.
On HTML to Image, yes: rendering is current Chrome, so grid, flexbox and whatever the browser shows is what the PDF shows. DocRaptor renders with Prince, which supports flexbox but, in its own words, does not yet support CSS Grid. If your layouts are grid-based, that difference decides it.
No. DocRaptor generates tagged, accessible PDFs with support for WCAG 2.0, Section 508 and ISO-14289, and it holds SOC2 and HIPAA compliance. HTML to Image output has real selectable text, which screen readers can read, but no accessibility tagging and no compliance certifications. Regulated documents belong on DocRaptor.
Meaningfully. DocRaptor starts at $15 for 125 documents a month and reaches 1,250 documents at $75. HTML to Image is $9 for 1,000 renders, and each render costs one credit whether it is a PDF or a PNG. DocRaptor does include unlimited free test documents, which is genuinely useful during development.
The free tier covers 25 renders a month with no credit card. Try the API against your real data before deciding.
Twenty-five pre-built designs you can call with JSON, as a PNG or a PDF. Document-shaped templates like invoices and certificates fit PDF mode naturally.