Pros of OpenHTMLtoPDF

• More active development and maintenance
• Better support for modern CSS features
• Improved performance and rendering accuracy

Cons of OpenHTMLtoPDF

• Potentially less stable due to ongoing changes
• May require more frequent updates to keep up with new features
• Smaller community and less widespread adoption

Code Comparison

OpenHTMLtoPDF:

PdfRendererBuilder builder = new PdfRendererBuilder();
builder.withUri("https://example.com");
builder.toStream(outputStream);
builder.run();

Flying Saucer:

ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
renderer.setDocument("https://example.com");
renderer.layout();
renderer.createPDF(outputStream);

Both projects aim to convert HTML to PDF, but OpenHTMLtoPDF offers more modern features and active development. Flying Saucer, while more established, has slower development and may lack support for newer CSS properties. OpenHTMLtoPDF's code appears more streamlined, using a builder pattern, while Flying Saucer uses a more traditional object-oriented approach. Users should consider their specific needs, desired features, and project stability when choosing between the two libraries.

Pros of PDFLayoutTextStripper

• Focused specifically on extracting text from PDF documents while preserving layout
• Lightweight and easy to integrate into existing Java projects
• Utilizes Apache PDFBox library for robust PDF parsing capabilities

Cons of PDFLayoutTextStripper

• Limited to text extraction and doesn't offer HTML rendering capabilities
• Less actively maintained compared to FlyingSaucer
• Narrower scope of functionality, primarily focused on PDF text extraction

Code Comparison

PDFLayoutTextStripper:

PDDocument document = PDDocument.load(new File("sample.pdf"));
PDFLayoutTextStripper stripper = new PDFLayoutTextStripper();
String text = stripper.getText(document);

FlyingSaucer:

ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
renderer.setDocument(new File("input.html"));
renderer.layout();
renderer.createPDF(new FileOutputStream("output.pdf"));

While PDFLayoutTextStripper focuses on extracting text from PDFs, FlyingSaucer is primarily used for converting HTML to PDF. The code snippets demonstrate their different use cases and APIs. PDFLayoutTextStripper provides a straightforward method for text extraction, while FlyingSaucer offers more complex functionality for PDF generation from HTML sources.

Pros of iText

• More comprehensive PDF manipulation capabilities, including creation, editing, and digital signatures
• Actively maintained with regular updates and extensive documentation
• Supports both Java and .NET platforms

Cons of iText

• Commercial license required for many use cases, which can be costly
• Steeper learning curve due to its extensive feature set
• Larger library size, which may impact application size and performance

Code Comparison

iText example:

PdfWriter writer = new PdfWriter(dest);
PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument(writer);
Document document = new Document(pdf);
document.add(new Paragraph("Hello World!"));
document.close();

Flying Saucer example:

ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
renderer.setDocument(new File("input.html"));
renderer.layout();
renderer.createPDF(new FileOutputStream("output.pdf"));

Summary

iText is a powerful, feature-rich PDF library with broad capabilities, while Flying Saucer focuses primarily on HTML-to-PDF conversion. iText offers more extensive PDF manipulation options but comes with licensing costs and a steeper learning curve. Flying Saucer is open-source and simpler to use for basic HTML-to-PDF conversion tasks but has more limited functionality compared to iText.

Pros of PDFBox

• More comprehensive PDF manipulation capabilities, including creation, modification, and extraction
• Actively maintained by Apache Software Foundation with regular updates
• Larger community and ecosystem, providing better support and resources

Cons of PDFBox

• Steeper learning curve due to its extensive feature set
• Larger library size, which may impact application size and performance
• More complex setup and configuration compared to Flying Saucer

Code Comparison

Flying Saucer (HTML to PDF conversion):

ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
renderer.setDocument(new File("input.html"));
renderer.layout();
renderer.createPDF(new FileOutputStream("output.pdf"));

PDFBox (PDF creation):

PDDocument document = new PDDocument();
PDPage page = new PDPage();
document.addPage(page);
PDPageContentStream contentStream = new PDPageContentStream(document, page);
contentStream.beginText();
contentStream.showText("Hello, World!");
contentStream.endText();
contentStream.close();
document.save("output.pdf");
document.close();

Flying Saucer is primarily focused on converting HTML/CSS to PDF, while PDFBox offers a wider range of PDF manipulation features. The code examples demonstrate the different approaches: Flying Saucer's simplicity in HTML-to-PDF conversion versus PDFBox's more detailed PDF creation process.

Pros of Prawn

• Written in Ruby, making it more accessible for Ruby developers
• Focuses specifically on PDF generation, offering more specialized features
• Lighter weight and potentially faster for PDF-only tasks

Cons of Prawn

• Limited to PDF generation, unlike Flying Saucer's HTML/CSS rendering capabilities
• May require more manual layout and styling compared to HTML/CSS approach
• Less suitable for converting existing web content to PDF

Code Comparison

Flying Saucer (Java):

ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
renderer.setDocument(new File("input.html"));
renderer.layout();
renderer.createPDF(new FileOutputStream("output.pdf"));

Prawn (Ruby):

Prawn::Document.generate("output.pdf") do
  text "Hello, World!"
  move_down 20
  text "This is a PDF generated with Prawn."
end

The code comparison shows that Flying Saucer uses HTML as input, while Prawn requires programmatic content generation. Flying Saucer is more suitable for converting existing HTML/CSS, whereas Prawn offers more fine-grained control over PDF content creation directly in Ruby.

Pros of wkhtmltopdf

• Supports a wider range of HTML and CSS features, including modern web technologies
• Faster rendering speed for complex layouts and large documents
• Ability to generate PDFs from URLs, not just local HTML files

Cons of wkhtmltopdf

• Larger file size and more dependencies, making it harder to integrate into some projects
• Less control over the PDF generation process compared to Java-based solutions
• May require more system resources to run effectively

Code Comparison

While a direct code comparison is not particularly relevant due to the different nature of these projects, here's a brief example of how they might be used:

flyingsaucer:

ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
renderer.setDocument(new File("input.html"));
renderer.layout();
renderer.createPDF(new FileOutputStream("output.pdf"));

wkhtmltopdf:

wkhtmltopdf https://example.com output.pdf

Both projects aim to convert HTML to PDF, but they approach the task differently. flyingsaucer is a Java library that can be integrated into Java applications, while wkhtmltopdf is a standalone command-line tool that can be used in various environments and programming languages through system calls or wrappers.