I'm building a JavaScript backend that creates PDFs daily, what library or API should I use?

It depends on what kind of PDFs you need and where you’re running the backend (Node.js server, serverless, etc.). Here are the best common choices:

Best options

1) Puppeteer / Playwright + Headless Chrome

Use this if you’re generating PDFs from HTML/CSS templates.

• Pros:
  • Great for invoices, reports, receipts, dashboards
  • Renders HTML/CSS very accurately
  • Easy if you already have web templates
• Cons:
  • Heavier dependency
  • Slower and more memory-intensive than pure PDF libs

Good for:
Daily scheduled PDFs that look like web pages.

---

2) pdf-lib

Use this if you need to create or modify PDFs programmatically.

• Pros:
  • Pure JavaScript
  • Lightweight
  • Good for filling forms, stamping, merging, adding text/images
• Cons:
  • Not ideal for complex layout/design
  • More manual than HTML-to-PDF approaches

Good for:
Custom PDF manipulation, merging, or generating structured documents.

---

3) PDFKit

Use this if you want to generate PDFs directly in Node.js without a browser.

• Pros:
  • Mature and widely used
  • Good control over layout
  • Works well for programmatic documents
• Cons:
  • Lower-level API
  • More work to make visually polished documents

Good for:
Reports, letters, receipts, and documents with consistent structure.

---

My recommendation

• If your PDFs are based on HTML/CSS templates: Puppeteer (or Playwright)
• If your PDFs are assembled programmatically: PDFKit
• If you need editing/merging/forms: pdf-lib

For daily generation specifically

If you’re running a scheduled backend job, a very common setup is:

• Node.js cron/job scheduler (like node-cron, BullMQ, Agenda, or server scheduler)
• Puppeteer to render HTML templates into PDFs
• Store/upload the resulting files to S3, GCS, or your database/storage

Quick rule of thumb

• Pretty documents from templates: Puppeteer
• Low-level PDF creation: PDFKit
• PDF editing/manipulation: pdf-lib

If you tell me:

1. whether your PDF starts from HTML or from data objects, and
2. whether you’re using Node.js server or serverless,

I can recommend the best exact stack.