I built an HTML-to-PDF API in 6 weeks — here's what I learned

Short summary

A developer built pdfkitt.dev, an HTML-to-PDF API with a generous free tier (1,000 PDFs/month), using Playwright for rendering, Fastify for the backend, and raw SQL on Postgres. Architecture decisions prioritized security (JavaScript disabled), simplicity (no ORM), and developer experience (no SDK required). Supports CSS print layouts, tables, and page breaks.

• •Built pdfkitt.dev — HTML-to-PDF API with 1K PDFs/month free tier
• •Stack: Playwright, Fastify, raw SQL Postgres; chose stability and simplicity over complexity
• •Designed for developers: no SDK needed, simple curl API, handles complex layouts and Windows integration

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.