StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Testing Frameworks
  4. Headless Browsers
  5. PhantomJS vs wkhtmltopdf

PhantomJS vs wkhtmltopdf

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

PhantomJS
PhantomJS
Stacks1.7K
Followers430
Votes18
GitHub Stars29.5K
Forks5.7K
wkhtmltopdf
wkhtmltopdf
Stacks60
Followers110
Votes0
GitHub Stars14.4K
Forks1.9K

PhantomJS vs wkhtmltopdf: What are the differences?

Differences between PhantomJS and wkhtmltopdf

PhantomJS and wkhtmltopdf are both popular tools for web scraping and converting web pages to PDF. Below are the key differences between the two:

  1. Execution Environment: PhantomJS is a headless browser that uses WebKit rendering engine, while wkhtmltopdf is a command-line tool that utilizes the WebKit engine to convert HTML to PDF.
  2. JavaScript Support: PhantomJS fully supports JavaScript, allowing dynamic web pages to be rendered and interacted with. On the other hand, wkhtmltopdf has limited JavaScript support, leading to potential inaccuracies in the conversion process.
  3. Page Rendering: PhantomJS accurately renders web pages by executing all JavaScript interactively, resulting in a faithful representation of the original page. In comparison, wkhtmltopdf's rendering process is non-interactive and may not handle complex pages with dynamic content as well.
  4. Ease of Use: PhantomJS provides a simple API for automating tasks and interacting with web pages programmatically. In contrast, wkhtmltopdf lacks such an API, requiring users to rely on command-line options for customizing the conversion process.
  5. Speed: PhantomJS generally renders pages slower than wkhtmltopdf due to its support for interactive elements. However, this slower rendering can ensure the accuracy and completeness of the final PDF output.
  6. Platform Compatibility: PhantomJS is compatible with a wide range of operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. Meanwhile, wkhtmltopdf primarily targets Linux and macOS systems, although Windows support is available but may be less stable.

In summary, PhantomJS is a more flexible and powerful tool for web scraping and page rendering, with full JavaScript support and more extensive platform compatibility. On the other hand, wkhtmltopdf is a simpler command-line tool suitable for basic HTML to PDF conversions, but with limited JavaScript support and less flexibility in customization options.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Advice on PhantomJS, wkhtmltopdf

Ankur
Ankur

Software Engineer

Dec 4, 2019

Needs advice

I am using Node 12 for server scripting and have a function to generate PDF and send it to a browser. Currently, we are using PhantomJS to generate a PDF. Some web post shows that we can achieve PDF generation using Puppeteer. I was a bit confused. Should we move to puppeteerJS? Which one is better with NodeJS for generating PDF?

73.1k views73.1k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

PhantomJS
PhantomJS
wkhtmltopdf
wkhtmltopdf

PhantomJS is a headless WebKit scriptable with JavaScript. It is used by hundreds of developers and dozens of organizations for web-related development workflow.

wkhtmltopdf and wkhtmltoimage are command line tools to render HTML into PDF and various image formats using the QT Webkit rendering engine. These run entirely "headless" and do not require a display or display service.

Multiplatform, available on major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other Unices; Fast and native implementation of web standards: DOM, CSS, JavaScript, Canvas, and SVG. No emulation; Pure headless (no X11) on Linux, ideal for continuous integration systems. Also runs on Amazon EC2, Heroku, and Iron.io; Easy to install: Download, unpack, and start having fun in just 5 minutes
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
29.5K
GitHub Stars
14.4K
GitHub Forks
5.7K
GitHub Forks
1.9K
Stacks
1.7K
Stacks
60
Followers
430
Followers
110
Votes
18
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 13
    Scriptable web browser
  • 3
    Depends on QT
  • 2
    No ECMAScript 6
No community feedback yet
Integrations
FreeBSD
FreeBSD
macOS
macOS
Windows
Windows
Linux
Linux
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to PhantomJS, wkhtmltopdf?

Playwright

Playwright

It is a Node library to automate the Chromium, WebKit and Firefox browsers with a single API. It enables cross-browser web automation that is ever-green, capable, reliable and fast.

Puppeteer

Puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome over the DevTools Protocol. It can also be configured to use full (non-headless) Chrome.

DocRaptor

DocRaptor

DocRaptor makes it easy to convert HTML to PDF and XLS format. Choose your document format, select configuration options and make an HTTP POST request to our server. DocRaptor returns your file in a matter of seconds. We provide extensive documentation and examples to get you started, and our API makes it easy to use DocRaptor to generate PDF and Excel files in your own web applications.

HeadlessTesting

HeadlessTesting

Headless Browser Cloud for Developers. Connect your Puppeteer and Playwright scripts to our Cloud. Automated Browser Testing with Puppeteer and Playwright in the Cloud.

Pandoc

Pandoc

It is a free and open-source document converter, widely used as a writing tool and as a basis for publishing workflows. It converts files from one markup format into another. It can convert documents in (several dialects of) Markdown, reStructuredText, textile, HTML, DocBook, LaTeX, MediaWiki markup, TWiki and many more.

jsdom

jsdom

It is a pure-JavaScript implementation of many web standards, notably the WHATWG DOM and HTML Standards, for use with Node.js. In general, the goal of the project is to emulate enough of a subset of a web browser to be useful for testing and scraping real-world web applications.

Inkfluence AI

Inkfluence AI

Plan, write, and publish books, PDF guides, workbooks, and audiobooks with AI workflows. Customize branding and export instantly.

JPG to WebP Converter

JPG to WebP Converter

Convert JPG to WebP online free. Modern image format for faster websites. Reduce JPEG file size by 25-35%. Batch convert up to 20 files.

PDFGate

PDFGate

PDFGate offers a fast and reliable PDF API for developers. Create, process, and manage PDFs at scale with simple, powerful tools.

ConvertFT

ConvertFT

Free online photo editor and image tools. Batch resize, compress, convert, crop, blur, sharpen, rotate, grayscale, remove EXIF, and more—no installation required.

Related Comparisons

GitHub
Bitbucket

Bitbucket vs GitHub vs GitLab

Bootstrap
Materialize

Bootstrap vs Materialize

Laravel
Django

Django vs Laravel vs Node.js

Bootstrap
Foundation

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI

Node.js
Spring Boot

Node.js vs Spring-Boot