Looking at more options than these two? We compare eight tools in Carbone alternatives in 2026, and the wider market in our roundup of the best PDF generation APIs in 2026.
Carbone is a template-based document generation engine from France: you design a template in Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, Excel, PowerPoint or HTML, add text tags for your data, send JSON to the API and get back a PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, ODT or other format. It runs as an EU-hosted cloud API, a self-hosted Docker image or a private cloud on AWS, including a free community edition. It is a developer-first template engine, which makes it a very different offer to PDF Generator API, where templates are built in a drag-and-drop editor you can embed in your own product. The comparison below breaks down where each fits.
Pricing
Carbone Cloud is billed per generated document, from a free plan of 100 documents a month up to €595/month for 500,000, with no drag-and-drop editor and the embeddable Studio only from €159/month; PDF Generator API is a document generation platform from €8/month with a 14-day free trial, a drag-and-drop editor, and dedicated or on-premises deployment.
Carbone
Template engine · Cloud, On-Premise or AWS · billed per document
- Free€0 (100/mo)
- From€29/mo (1,000)
- Scales to€595/mo (500k)
Six cloud tiers from free to €595/month, with extra documents charged from €0.05 down to €0.001 each; injected data over 1 MB counts as two documents. The embeddable Studio Web Component, team members and SSO start on the €159/month Advanced plan. Self-hosting is available as a free community edition or enterprise licences from €1,500/year, and cloud hosting is in France only. Templates are Word, LibreOffice, Excel, PowerPoint or HTML files with text tags, output goes to PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, ODT and more, with SDKs for seven languages and Zapier, Make, n8n, Bubble, Airtable and Odoo integrations, but no drag-and-drop designer, no web forms and no ISO 27001 or HIPAA certification of its own.
PDF Generator API
Cloud plans · billed by credits · 14-day free trial
- Individualfrom €8/mo
- Teamfrom €52/mo
- Scales to250k credits/mo
Individual starts at 50 credits and 5 templates; Team starts at 1,000 credits, 25 templates and 10 workspaces, with unlimited templates and the embedded editor on higher tiers. Every plan includes a 14-day free trial, and on-premises deployment is available on request.
Which one should you choose?
Choose Carbone if
- Your templates already live in Word, LibreOffice, Excel or PowerPoint and your developers are comfortable adding tags by hand.
- You need output beyond PDF, such as DOCX, XLSX, PPTX or ODT reports generated from the same data.
- You want to self-host for free with the community edition, or you generate very large volumes where a per-document price of a fraction of a cent matters most.
Choose PDF Generator API if
- People who do not write code, including your own customers, need to design and edit templates in a drag-and-drop editor.
- You want to embed a white-label template editor in your SaaS product, with workspaces that keep each customer’s templates separate.
- You need an ISO 27001 certified and HIPAA compliant vendor, or dedicated deployment in the US, EU, UK or Australia.
- You want fillable PDF form fields, signature fields, web forms that collect data, or an existing PDF used as a template.
Conclusion
Carbone is a mature, developer-first template engine with a broad output range, deep templating logic (loops, conditions, formatters, aggregates and native charts), SDKs for seven languages and a rare choice of cloud, self-hosted and private AWS deployment, including a free community edition. It is a strong choice when your templates already live in Word or LibreOffice, your developers are comfortable writing tags, and you need DOCX, XLSX or PPTX output next to PDF. Its model still assumes someone codes the template: there is no drag-and-drop designer, the embeddable Studio only arrives on the €159/month plan, there are no web forms, cloud hosting is limited to France, and Carbone does not list its own ISO 27001 certification or HIPAA compliance, so the template layer and much of the compliance work stay your responsibility.
PDF Generator API gives you template-based generation that people other than developers can manage: a cloud SaaS from €8/month with a 14-day free trial and dedicated deployment in the US, EU, UK or Australia, or on-premises when you need it, a drag-and-drop embeddable editor your own customers can use, multi-tenant workspaces, fillable PDF form and signature fields, web forms, an AI template builder, and HIPAA and ISO 27001 compliance. Companies such as Katana MRP and Paragon ERP use it to let their own users manage document templates. If your customers need to own their templates, it is worth a direct comparison.
Frequently asked questions
What is the main difference between Carbone and PDF Generator API?
Carbone fills Word, LibreOffice, Excel, PowerPoint or HTML templates that contain text tags, so templates are written by someone who knows the tag syntax. PDF Generator API uses a visual drag-and-drop editor, so templates can be designed by non-developers and by your own customers when you embed the editor in your product.
Is Carbone cheaper than PDF Generator API?
It depends on volume. PDF Generator API has the lower entry price, from €8/month for 50 credits and €26/month for 250, with a 14-day free trial on every plan; Carbone offers a free plan with 100 documents a month and paid plans from €29/month for 1,000. At high volumes Carbone’s per-document price is lower, for example €159/month for 20,000 documents. PDF Generator API includes ISO 27001 and HIPAA compliance on every plan, and its embeddable editor is available on a lower plan than Carbone’s Studio.
Which one handles high-volume document generation better?
Both support asynchronous generation, webhooks and batch generation. Carbone scales to 500,000 documents a month in the cloud and offers unlimited self-hosted licences. PDF Generator API scales to 250,000 credits a month on its cloud plans, where one credit covers a document of up to five pages, with dedicated deployment and on-premises options for larger workloads.
Can I embed a template editor in my own application?
Yes, with both. Carbone’s Studio Web Component is available from the Advanced plan at €159/month and edits tag-based templates. PDF Generator API’s embedded editor is available on a lower Team plan, is fully white-label and gives your users drag-and-drop design, with workspaces that keep each customer’s templates separate.
Can I self-host either solution?
Carbone offers a free community edition and enterprise licences from €1,500/year, plus a private cloud on AWS. PDF Generator API offers dedicated cloud deployment in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom or Australia, and on-premises deployment on request.
When is a Word-based template engine the wrong choice?
When templates must be edited by business users or end customers, when many tenants each need their own branded templates, or when you need fillable PDF forms, signature fields or an existing PDF as the base layout. In those cases a visual editor with workspaces saves developer time on every template change.