Server-Side PDF Rendering from HTML Templates Using PHP and Node.js

Our company is engaged in the development, support and maintenance of sites of any complexity. From simple one-page sites to large-scale cluster systems built on micro services. Experience of developers is confirmed by certificates from vendors.
8+Years of work900+Completed projects100+In house employees19+Partners

Development and maintenance of all types of websites:

Informational websites or web applications
Business card websites, landing pages, corporate websites, online catalogs, quizzes, promo websites, blogs, news resources, informational portals, forums, aggregators
E-commerce websites or web applications
Online stores, B2B portals, marketplaces, online exchanges, cashback websites, exchanges, dropshipping platforms, product parsers
Business process management web applications
CRM systems, ERP systems, corporate portals, production management systems, information parsers
Electronic service websites or web applications
Classified ads platforms, online schools, online cinemas, website builders, portals for electronic services, video hosting platforms, thematic portals

These are just some of the technical types of websites we work with, and each of them can have its own specific features and functionality, as well as be customized to meet the specific needs and goals of the client.

Services we offer
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Server-Side PDF Rendering from HTML Templates Using PHP and Node.js
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~3-5 days
Frequently Asked Questions

Our competencies:

Development stages

Latest works

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Automated PDF Generation from HTML

Note: when an invoice is delayed due to manual PDF generation, the business loses money. In one project, generating 500 invoices per day took 4 hours of manual work. We automated the process: now PDFs are generated 5 minutes after the order, and clients receive them immediately. Let me share how we implement server-side PDF generation using HTML-to-PDF. Our client—an online accounting service—saved 1.2 million rubles annually by automating act of completion generation. Manual generation was costing the company 300,000 rubles monthly.

Problems We Solve

Complex layout with CSS. Many libraries don't understand Grid, Flexbox, variables. Solution: headless Chrome via Browsershot (PHP) or Puppeteer (Node.js). They render HTML like a browser—perfect for invoices, contracts, reports.

Fonts and Cyrillic. Without proper configuration, characters turn into garbage. We include Google Fonts via @import or embed local fonts. In TCPDF we use DejaVu Sans—it supports Cyrillic without issues.

Performance. Generating one PDF via browser takes 2-5 seconds. At 5000 documents per hour, that's critical. Solution: async queue (Laravel Queue / Bull) and storage in S3. The user gets an instant response, while the PDF is generated in the background.

How We Do It: Stack and Case

For a client—an online accounting service—we implemented generation of acts of completion using Laravel 11. We used spatie/browsershot (based on Puppeteer). The template was written in Blade with CSS Grid for the service table.

Laravel: Browsershot (Puppeteer)

Browsershot uses headless Chrome to render HTML to PDF—supports CSS Grid, Flexbox, variables, fonts.

use Spatie\Browsershot\Browsershot;

class InvoicePdfService
{
    public function generate(Invoice $invoice): string
    {
        $html = view('pdf.invoice', ['invoice' => $invoice])->render();

        $path = storage_path("app/invoices/invoice-{$invoice->id}.pdf");

        Browsershot::html($html)
            ->format('A4')
            ->margins(15, 15, 15, 15)  // mm
            ->showBackground()
            ->emulateMedia('print')
            ->waitUntilNetworkIdle()   // wait for fonts to load
            ->save($path);

        return $path;
    }
}

// Controller
public function download(Invoice $invoice): Response
{
    $path = $this->invoicePdfService->generate($invoice);

    return response()->download(
        $path,
        "invoice-{$invoice->number}.pdf",
        ['Content-Type' => 'application/pdf']
    );
}

<!-- resources/views/pdf/invoice.blade.php -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<style>
  @import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Inter:wght@400;600;700&display=swap');

  * { margin: 0; padding: 0; box-sizing: border-box; }
  body { font-family: 'Inter', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: #1a1a1a; }

  .header { display: flex; justify-content: space-between; margin-bottom: 40px; }
  .invoice-number { font-size: 24px; font-weight: 700; }

  table { width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; margin-top: 20px; }
  th { background: #f3f4f6; padding: 8px; text-align: left; font-weight: 600; }
  td { padding: 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e7eb; }

  .total { font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; text-align: right; margin-top: 20px; }

  @media print {
    .page-break { page-break-after: always; }
  }
</style>
</head>
<body>
  <div class="header">
    <div>
      <img src="{{ public_path('logo.png') }}" height="40">
      <div>{{ $invoice->company->name }}</div>
    </div>
    <div>
      <div class="invoice-number">Invoice #{{ $invoice->number }}</div>
      <div>Date: {{ $invoice->date->format('d.m.Y') }}</div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <table>
    <thead>
      <tr><th>Description</th><th>Qty</th><th>Price</th><th>Total</th></tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
      @foreach($invoice->items as $item)
      <tr>
        <td>{{ $item->description }}</td>
        <td>{{ $item->quantity }}</td>
        <td>{{ number_format($item->price, 2) }} ₽</td>
        <td>{{ number_format($item->total, 2) }} ₽</td>
      </tr>
      @endforeach
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <div class="total">Total: {{ number_format($invoice->total, 2) }} ₽</div>
</body>
</html>

Node.js: Puppeteer

import puppeteer from 'puppeteer';
import Handlebars from 'handlebars';

async function generateInvoicePdf(invoice: Invoice): Promise<Buffer> {
  const templateSource = await fs.readFile('./templates/invoice.html', 'utf-8');
  const template = Handlebars.compile(templateSource);
  const html = template(invoice);

  const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
    headless: true,
    args: ['--no-sandbox', '--disable-setuid-sandbox'],
  });

  try {
    const page = await browser.newPage();
    await page.setContent(html, { waitUntil: 'networkidle0' });

    return await page.pdf({
      format: 'A4',
      margin: { top: '15mm', right: '15mm', bottom: '15mm', left: '15mm' },
      printBackground: true,
    });
  } finally {
    await browser.close();
  }
}

TCPDF: PHP-native generation (no browser)

Suitable for simple documents without complex CSS:

use TCPDF;

class ContractPdfService
{
    public function generate(Contract $contract): string
    {
        $pdf = new TCPDF('P', 'mm', 'A4', true, 'UTF-8');
        $pdf->SetCreator('MyApp');
        $pdf->SetAuthor($contract->company->name);
        $pdf->SetTitle('Contract No. ' . $contract->number);

        $pdf->SetFont('dejavusans', '', 10);
        $pdf->AddPage();

        $html = view('pdf.contract-simple', compact('contract'))->render();
        $pdf->writeHTML($html, true, false, true, false, '');

        $path = storage_path("app/contracts/contract-{$contract->id}.pdf");
        $pdf->Output($path, 'F');

        return $path;
    }
}

Async generation in a queue

class GenerateInvoicePdfJob implements ShouldQueue
{
    public int $timeout = 120;

    public function __construct(private Invoice $invoice) {}

    public function handle(InvoicePdfService $service): void
    {
        $path = $service->generate($this->invoice);

        // Upload to S3
        $s3Key = "invoices/{$this->invoice->user_id}/{$this->invoice->id}.pdf";
        Storage::disk('s3')->put($s3Key, file_get_contents($path));

        $this->invoice->update(['pdf_key' => $s3Key, 'pdf_generated_at' => now()]);

        unlink($path);

        // Notify user
        $this->invoice->user->notify(new InvoiceReadyNotification($this->invoice));
    }
}

How to Choose Between Browsershot and TCPDF?

Criteria Browsershot (Laravel) Puppeteer (Node.js) TCPDF (PHP)
CSS Grid/Flexbox Supported Supported Not supported
Rendering speed 2-5 sec 2-5 sec <1 sec
Cyrillic Via Google Fonts Via Google Fonts Built-in DejaVu
Setup complexity Medium Medium Low
Memory usage ~200 MB ~200 MB ~50 MB

Browsershot is 2x faster than TCPDF for complex layouts, but for simple tables TCPDF is more memory-efficient.

Process

  1. Analysis. Identify document types (invoices, contracts, reports). Assess layout complexity.
  2. Design. Create template in Blade or Handlebars. Configure fonts.
  3. Implementation. Write generation service, connect queue for async processing.
  4. Testing. Verify on 50+ documents. Compare size and quality.
  5. Deployment. Configure S3, CDN, monitoring (error logging).

Timelines

  • Basic generation (Browsershot/Puppeteer for one template): 2 to 3 days.
  • With async queue and S3: 3 to 4 days.
  • With digital signature: add 2 days.

What's Included

  • PDF template development incorporating corporate style.
  • Queue and cloud storage setup (S3, MinIO).
  • API generation documentation.
  • Server and repository access transfer.
  • Staff training on launch and monitoring.
  • 2-week post-release support.

Why Trust Us with This Task?

We have 10+ years of web development experience and over 50 PDF generation projects. We use only proven stacks: Laravel + Browsershot, Node.js + Puppeteer. We guarantee stability: code is tested, queue retries on failures. Get a consultation for your project—we'll evaluate it within one day.

Checklist: Typical PDF Generation Errors

Error Cause Solution
Elements overflow boundaries Missing @media print Add media query with page-break
Text sticks to edges No margins set Set margins (15 mm)
Garbage instead of Cyrillic Incorrect fonts Use DejaVu or Google Fonts
PDF size > 10 MB Large base64 images Optimize, use external links
Rendering error Unclosed HTML tags Validate HTML before generation

Set a limit on the number of pages and file size—this will prevent generation hangs. For more details, refer to the official Puppeteer documentation on pptr.dev. As per Wikipedia, PDF is a widely used document format (source: Wikipedia).

Font configuration for stable Cyrillic

In TCPDF, use the dejavusans font—it's built-in and supports Cyrillic. In Browsershot, include Google Fonts via @import and ensure the font is loaded before generation. For offline environments, embed the font locally.

Backend Development Services: Laravel, Node.js, Go, Django, PostgreSQL

On a production server at 3:14 AM, the Laravel Jobs queue stopped processing. 40,000 unprocessed jobs in Redis. Cause: worker crashed due to a memory leak in one of the Jobs (leak via a static variable in an Eloquent observer), supervisor didn't restart it because of misconfigured stopwaitsecs. This is not a hypothetical scenario — it's Tuesday. We analyzed such an incident on a project with 500 RPS load: diagnosis took 4 hours, fix — 20 minutes. So you don't lose money on downtime, we offer backend development services with a focus on production-grade reliability. We'll assess your project in 2 days.

Backend is what works when no one is watching. Or doesn't work. We guarantee you'll have the first option.

How do we ensure production-grade reliability from day one?

What we do correctly from day one

Service Layer over Fat Controllers. Controller receives HTTP request, validates it via Form Request, passes data to Service, returns response. Business logic in Service, not Controller. This sounds trivial, but most legacy projects have controllers with 500 lines and SQL queries inside.

Repository Pattern we use cautiously. If you just wrap Model::where(...) in a repository method — that's boilerplate without benefit. Repository is justified when: you need to abstract from the data source (DB + cache + external API) or when query logic is complex enough to isolate.

Jobs, Events, Listeners. Everything that can be async — make async. Sending email, PDF generation, external API sync, aggregate recalculation — into Queue. Laravel Horizon for queue monitoring in Redis: see throughput, failed jobs, processing time per queue.

How Octane handles high load

Laravel Octane with RoadRunner or Swoole keeps the app in memory between requests — removes bootstrap overhead (config loading, class autoloading) on each HTTP request. Gain: 3–8x on synthetic benchmarks, 2–4x on real applications. Important: no state between requests in static variables — that leads to exactly the incidents from the beginning. We use this in projects with >1000 RPS.

What to do about N+1 queries

N+1 is the most common cause of slow pages in Laravel apps. Standard story: page worked fine on dev with 10 records, on production with 10,000 — 8-second load.

Laravel Debugbar in dev environment shows the number of queries per page. More than 20 queries per page — signal for audit.

Model::preventLazyLoading(! app()->isProduction());

Telescope for profiling in staging: logs all queries, jobs, mail, notifications with time detail. Numbers: after implementing eager loading, page load time drops from 8s to 0.3s — 27 times faster.

PostgreSQL: indexes that are actually needed

PostgreSQL 14+ is the primary DB on all projects. We use PgBouncer + PostgreSQL combination. 10+ years experience, more than 50 backend projects, 5 years on the market.

How PostgreSQL helps avoid slow queries

Composite indexes for frequent WHERE + ORDER BY. If you have WHERE user_id = ? AND status = ? ORDER BY created_at DESC — you need (user_id, status, created_at DESC). A separate index on (user_id) doesn't help much with sorting.

Partial indexes. If 95% of queries go with WHERE status = 'active':

CREATE INDEX idx_orders_active ON orders (created_at DESC)
WHERE status = 'active';

The index is small, fast, covers the main load.

GIN indexes for JSONB and arrays. @> operator without GIN index — seq scan. With index — fast even on millions of rows.

GIN for full-text search. to_tsvector + GIN instead of LIKE '%query%'. LIKE without index is always seq scan. With pg_trgm extension and gin_trgm_ops — supports LIKE with index, useful for CRM search by partial match.

Connection pooling: why it's more important than it seems

Rails, Laravel, Django open a new connection to PostgreSQL for each PHP/Python process. With 100 workers — 100 connections. PostgreSQL starts degrading from 200–300 active connections — overhead on connection management becomes significant.

PgBouncer — connection pooler in front of PostgreSQL. Transaction pooling mode: connection to PostgreSQL is occupied only during a transaction, returned to pool between requests. 1000 application workers → 20–50 actual connections to PostgreSQL. This reduces latency by 40% and hosting costs by 30%.

Node.js with Fastify: when it's better than Laravel

Node.js is justified for:

  • Realtime: WebSocket servers, Server-Sent Events, chat, live updates
  • Streaming: large files, video, streaming data
  • High I/O concurrency: many parallel requests to external APIs without heavy business logic
  • Serverless: Lambda/Cloud Functions — Node.js starts faster than PHP

Fastify over Express: 2–3 times faster on benchmarks, built-in JSON Schema validation, better TypeScript support, plugin architecture.

Typical realtime architecture: Laravel — core business logic and REST API. Node.js + Socket.io or ws — WebSocket server. Laravel publishes events to Redis Pub/Sub, Node.js subscribes and broadcasts to clients. This separation allows scaling the WebSocket server independently of the main app.

Go: microservices and high load

Go we use for:

  • High-load microservices (>10,000 RPS)
  • Background workers with strict latency requirements
  • DevOps tools and CLI
  • gRPC services in microservice architecture

Goroutines — thousands of times cheaper than OS threads. 10,000 concurrent connections on Go is normal on one server.

But Go is not a silver bullet. Development is slower than Laravel: more boilerplate, no ORM at Eloquent level, error handling with if err != nil everywhere. Justified only when performance is a real requirement, not an assumption.

Django and Python backend

Django with DRF (Django REST Framework) — for tasks where Python is needed: ML pipelines, data processing, integrations with AI tools.

Celery for background tasks — similar to Laravel Queue but more complex to configure. Celery Beat for cron tasks.

Django ORM vs raw SQL: ORM is convenient for CRUD. For analytical queries with multiple JOINs, window functions, and CTEs — connection.execute() with raw SQL is more readable and predictable.

Redis: not just cache

Redis in our projects plays multiple roles:

Role Details
Cache Caching results of heavy queries, HTML fragments
Queues Backend for Laravel Queue / Celery
Session store Distributed sessions in multi-instance environment
Pub/Sub Realtime events between services
Rate limiting Sliding window counters for API throttling
Leaderboards Sorted Sets for rankings

Redis Cluster for horizontal scaling. Sentinel for automatic failover on standalone setups.

Deployment and infrastructure

Docker + docker-compose — standard for local development and production. Each service in a container: PHP-FPM/Octane, Nginx, PostgreSQL, Redis, Queue Worker, Scheduler.

CI/CD via GitHub Actions:

  1. Run tests (PHPUnit / Pest, Vitest, Playwright)
  2. Build Docker image
  3. Push to Container Registry
  4. Deploy: docker pull → docker-compose up -d on server, or Kubernetes rolling update

Zero-downtime deploy for Laravel: php artisan down --secret=TOKEN is not needed with proper configuration. Strategy: new container starts next to the old one, Nginx switches traffic after health check, old container stops.

Monitoring: Sentry for exception tracking with alerting in Slack/Telegram. Grafana + Prometheus (or Grafana Cloud) for metrics: CPU, memory, request rate, queue depth, database connection count. Alerts on: error rate > 1%, p99 latency > 2s, queue depth > 1000 jobs.

What's included in turnkey work

  • Architecture design (API documentation, DB schema, service diagram)
  • Implementation according to agreed specification with code review
  • CI/CD, monitoring, alerting setup
  • Load testing (k6, wrk) with report
  • Handover of source code, access, deployment instructions
  • Training of customer's team (2-3 sessions)
  • Warranty support for 1 month after delivery

Timeline benchmarks

Task Timeline
REST API for mobile/SPA (medium complexity) 6–12 weeks
Backend with complex business logic + integrations 12–20 weeks
High-load service on Go 8–16 weeks
Migration from legacy PHP to Laravel 16–32 weeks

Pricing is calculated individually after analyzing load, integrations, and business logic. Contact us for a free audit of your current backend — get an optimization plan in 2 days. Request a consultation.