OpenPDF VS TCPDF

Compare OpenPDF vs TCPDF and see what are their differences.

OpenPDF

OpenPDF is a free Java library for creating and editing PDF files, with a LGPL and MPL open source license. OpenPDF is based on a fork of iText. We welcome contributions from other developers. Please feel free to submit pull-requests and bugreports to this GitHub repository. (by LibrePDF)

TCPDF

Official clone of PHP library to generate PDF documents and barcodes (by tecnickcom)
PDF
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OpenPDF TCPDF
15 17
3,308 4,030
2.1% 0.9%
9.5 5.6
12 days ago 5 days ago
Java PHP
GNU General Public License v3.0 or later GNU General Public License v3.0 or later
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

OpenPDF

Posts with mentions or reviews of OpenPDF. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-03-11.

TCPDF

Posts with mentions or reviews of TCPDF. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-04-05.
  • Intro to DOMPDF - lightest and simplest PHP library to generate PDF documents
    4 projects | dev.to | 5 Apr 2024
    Generating PDF documents out of your app's HTML output is a very common requirement and there are several open source libraries to accomplish this. I came across this need for my project recently and I evaluated many popular ones such as TCPDF, mpdf, FPDF, etc. But the one that truly stood up to my evaluation in terms of efficiency (minimal footprint) and ease of implementation was DOMPDF.
  • PDF generation in Laravel
    3 projects | dev.to | 24 Dec 2023
    Leveraging Laravel for PDF generation involves utilizing its built-in features or integrating third-party packages. The framework supports popular packages like dompdf and TCPDF, making it easy to implement PDF generation with minimal effort.
  • PostScript’s Sudden Death in Sonoma
    4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 25 Sep 2023
    TCPDF has full support for rendering an EPS into a PDF.

    It can be fussy.

    https://tcpdf.org/

  • Python to what?
    1 project | /r/ProgrammerHumor | 16 Apr 2023
    Idk what’s the big problem. Maybe it’s just something like https://tcpdf.org ? Using that for years.
  • PHP chart libraries
    4 projects | /r/PHP | 2 Mar 2023
    Depending on if this is a web-based project or not this suggestion might not be suitable. But the last few projects like this I did that were web-based I have used Google Charts with TCPDF. I rendered the charts on the page as a "print preview", and since TCPDF supports basic HTML composition I saved out the charts as generated images and submitted them to the server which generates a PDF. Bit convoluted but that was what I came up with in a hurry.
  • Create this template in .pdf format
    1 project | /r/webdev | 10 Feb 2023
  • pdf generation
    3 projects | /r/PHPhelp | 8 Feb 2023
    Running a headless browser to render HTML is a resource intensive task. If you only need to generate simple documents, you're better off using a tool that generates PDF directly. In the old days we used FPDF and its successors (TCPDF was the most popular). Both seem to have recent releases. There's also mPDF , that seems to be another child of FPDF.
  • Create PDF from Excel.
    1 project | /r/pdf | 27 Jul 2022
    You may want to look at a PDF library (Python/PHP/Perl/Java, etc.) You can do all you mention with a lot of flexibility. tcPDF comes immediately to mind, there is also a Python port. If you want to learn a language, i recommend python. Learning how to make a basic program when it is something that you want, and you know what you want is a great way to learn.
  • Bundling lots of .html files into a PDF?
    3 projects | /r/pdf | 9 Jul 2022
    I would also look at dompdf and tcPDF, they would have very advantages if you intend to revise/reprint your documentation.
  • How to insert MYSQL data in allredy prepared PDF document
    2 projects | /r/PHPhelp | 31 May 2022
    The original site still has it available for download, but most importantly, a ton of examples and documentation, that while I haven't tried the github version, probably works based on the same as the old.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing OpenPDF and TCPDF you can also consider the following projects:

iText - [DEPRECATED] Core Java Library + PDF/A, xtra and XML Worker. Only security fixes will be added — please use iText 7

Dompdf - HTML to PDF converter for PHP

Apache PDFBox - Mirror of Apache PDFBox

WKHTMLToPDF - Convert HTML to PDF using Webkit (QtWebKit)

Open HTML to PDF - An HTML to PDF library for the JVM. Based on Flying Saucer and Apache PDF-BOX 2. With SVG image support. Now also with accessible PDF support (WCAG, Section 508, PDF/UA)!

mPDF - PHP library generating PDF files from UTF-8 encoded HTML

itext-java - iText for Java represents the next level of SDKs for developers that want to take advantage of the benefits PDF can bring. Equipped with a better document engine, high and low-level programming capabilities and the ability to create, edit and enhance PDF documents, iText can be a boon to nearly every workflow.

tc-lib-pdf - TCPDF - PHP PDF Library - https://tcpdf.org

Dynamic Jasper - Dynamic Reports using Jasper Reports

Snappy - PHP library allowing thumbnail, snapshot or PDF generation from a url or a html page. Wrapper for wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltoimage

flyingsaucer - XML/XHTML and CSS 2.1 renderer in pure Java

PHPJasper - A PHP report generator