Most developers don't think about who builds the libraries they use every day. IronPDF started as a side project solving one developer's HTML-to-PDF problem. Today, it's maintained by a team of 50+ engineers and used by Fortune 500 companies worldwide.
Here's the story of how IronPDF grew from a single developer's frustration to a production-grade library powering millions of PDF generations per day.
The Problem: HTML to PDF Was Terrible in .NET (2013)
The State of PDF Libraries in 2013
Back in 2013, if you needed HTML-to-PDF in .NET, your options were:
- iTextSharp — Powerful PDF manipulation, terrible HTML rendering
- wkhtmltopdf — Command-line tool based on outdated WebKit
- Commercial libraries — Expensive ($2,000-$5,000 per developer)
- Roll your own — Use System.Drawing (Windows-only, poor quality)
The problem:
None of these could render modern HTML/CSS correctly. Bootstrap layouts broke, Google Fonts didn't load, JavaScript charts didn't execute.
// 2013: This was the "best" option for HTML to PDF
using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;
using iTextSharp.tool.xml;
var html = "<h1>Invoice</h1>"; // Simple HTML only
var htmlStream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(html));
using var pdfStream = new FileStream("invoice.pdf", FileMode.Create);
var document = new Document();
var writer = PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, pdfStream);
document.Open();
XMLWorkerHelper.GetInstance().ParseXHtml(writer, document, htmlStream, null);
document.Close();
// Result: Broken layouts, no modern CSS support
The Frustration That Started Everything
The scenario:
I was building an invoicing platform for a client. Requirements:
- Generate professional invoices from HTML templates
- Use Bootstrap for consistent styling
- Support Google Fonts
- Match the web page exactly
What happened:
I spent 2 weeks trying to make iTextSharp render Bootstrap correctly. It failed every time. Flexbox didn't work, Google Fonts required manual embedding, CSS Grid didn't exist in iTextSharp's renderer.
The moment:
After the 50th failed attempt, I thought: "This is ridiculous. Chrome can render this HTML perfectly. Why can't a PDF library?"
That question led to IronPDF.
The Solution: Embed Chromium for PDF Rendering (2014)
The Insight
The realization:
Chrome uses Chromium to render HTML. Chromium supports all modern CSS and JavaScript. If I could embed Chromium's rendering engine in a .NET library, I could generate pixel-perfect PDFs.
The challenge:
- Chromium is a massive C++ codebase (25M+ lines of code)
- It needs to run in-process (not spawning external browsers)
- It must work cross-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS)
- It has to be fast (no browser process overhead)
The first prototype:
// Early prototype (2014)
var renderer = new [ChromePdfRenderer](https://ironpdf.com/blog/videos/how-to-render-webgl-sites-to-pdf-in-csharp-ironpdf/)();
var pdf = renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf("<h1>It works!</h1>");
pdf.SaveAs("test.pdf");
Result: Perfect PDF rendering. Bootstrap layouts worked. Google Fonts loaded. JavaScript executed.
This was the birth of IronPDF.
Early Days: Side Project to Real Product (2014-2016)
The MVP (2014)
First version features:
- HTML string to PDF
- Basic page settings (size, margins)
- Windows-only
- .NET Framework 4.5+
First customer:
A small consulting firm needed to generate 500 invoices per month. They paid $499 for a license.
Validation: People would actually pay for this.
Growing Pains (2015)
Challenges:
- Chromium updates — Chromium updates every 6 weeks. Keeping IronPDF in sync required constant work.
- Cross-platform support — Customers wanted Linux and macOS support (Chromium works on all platforms, but integration was complex).
- Feature requests — Customers wanted PDF manipulation (merge, split, forms, signatures), not just HTML rendering.
The decision:
IronPDF needed to become a full-featured PDF library, not just an HTML renderer.
Expanding Features (2016)
Added:
- Merge and split PDFs
- Text extraction
- Form filling
- Digital signatures
- Watermarks
- PDF/A compliance
- Linux and macOS support
- .NET Core support (early alpha)
Revenue: ~$200,000 ARR (400 licenses sold)
Team size: 3 engineers (me + 2 contractors)
The Turning Point: Fortune 500 Adoption (2017-2019)
First Enterprise Customer (2017)
Scenario:
A Fortune 500 healthcare company needed to generate 100,000 patient lab reports per month. Their requirements:
- Bootstrap templates (modern CSS)
- Chart.js graphs (JavaScript execution)
- HIPAA compliance (encryption, digital signatures)
- PDF/A archival standard
- SLA-backed support
Why they chose IronPDF:
- Only library that could render their templates correctly
- Chromium rendering matched their web app exactly
- Comprehensive feature set (one library, not three)
- Commercial support available
Deal size: $25,000 (enterprise license for 30 developers)
Impact: Validated IronPDF for enterprise use cases.
Scaling Challenges (2018)
Growing pains:
- Support requests increased 10x
- Bug reports for edge cases
- Feature requests for niche use cases
- Need for faster response times
The solution:
Hire a dedicated support team and expand engineering.
Team growth:
- 2017: 3 engineers
- 2018: 12 engineers
- 2019: 25 engineers
.NET Core and Cross-Platform (2019)
Customer demand:
60% of new customers were using .NET Core and deploying to Linux Docker containers.
The challenge:
IronPDF was built for .NET Framework on Windows. Porting to .NET Core required:
- Rewrite native code integration
- Test on Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Alpine Linux
- Support ARM processors (Raspberry Pi, AWS Graviton)
The result:
IronPDF 2020.1: Full .NET Core 3.1 support on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Customer reaction:
"Finally, a PDF library that works on Linux without hacks. Deployed to our Kubernetes cluster in 30 minutes."
Becoming a Product Company: Iron Software (2020-2022)
The Expansion Beyond IronPDF (2020)
Customer feedback:
"We love IronPDF. Do you have similar libraries for Excel, OCR, barcodes?"
The opportunity:
Developers wanted the same quality and support for other document processing tasks.
Iron Suite launched:
- IronPDF — PDF generation and manipulation
- IronXL — Excel file generation and reading (no Excel interop required)
- IronOCR — Optical character recognition
- IronBarcode — Barcode generation and reading
- IronQR — QR code generation and reading
- IronPrint — Advanced printing
- IronWebScraper — Web scraping
- IronZIP — Compression
Team growth: 25 → 40 engineers
Remote-First During COVID-19 (2020-2021)
Challenge:
COVID-19 forced remote work. How do you scale a team remotely?
Approach:
- Hire globally (access to better talent)
- Async communication (documentation over meetings)
- Robust CI/CD (automated testing, deployment)
Result:
Team grew from 40 to 50+ engineers across 12 time zones.
Benefit: 24/5 support coverage (customers get responses faster)
.NET 5, .NET 6, .NET 8 Support (2020-2023)
Microsoft's challenge:
.NET releases annually. IronPDF must support new versions on launch day.
Our approach:
- Access to .NET preview builds (6 months early)
- Automated testing on nightly .NET builds
- Day-zero support for new .NET versions
Customer impact:
"IronPDF supported .NET 8 on release day. Other libraries took 6 months."
Today: 50+ Engineers, Millions of PDFs (2023-2025)
Current Scale (2025)
Team:
- 50+ engineers (development, QA, support, DevOps)
- 12 time zones
- Fully remote
Customers:
- 10,000+ companies
- Fortune 500 enterprises
- Startups and SMBs
- Government agencies
- Educational institutions
PDFs generated:
- ~10 million PDFs per day across all customers
- Peak load: 500 PDFs/second during tax season
Supported platforms:
- .NET Framework 4.6.2+
- .NET Core 3.1+
- .NET 5, .NET 6, .NET 8, .NET 10
- Windows (x64, x86)
- Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Alpine, ARM)
- macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon)
- Docker, Kubernetes, Azure, AWS, Google Cloud
What We've Learned
Lesson 1: Solve Real Problems
IronPDF exists because existing solutions failed. We didn't build a PDF library for the sake of building one—we solved a problem we personally experienced.
Lesson 2: Prioritize Developer Experience
Developers choose libraries based on:
- Does it solve my problem? (functionality)
- How fast can I integrate it? (simplicity)
- Will it work when I deploy? (reliability)
IronPDF's design philosophy:
using IronPdf;
// Install via NuGet: Install-Package IronPdf
// This should be all you need for 80% of use cases:
var renderer = new ChromePdfRenderer();
var pdf = renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf(html);
pdf.SaveAs("output.pdf");
3 lines. That's it.
Lesson 3: Support Matters
Developers buy libraries for features but stay for support. We respond to support emails within 24 hours (often faster).
Lesson 4: Invest in Quality
Every IronPDF release goes through:
- 10,000+ automated tests
- Manual QA on Windows, Linux, macOS
- Performance regression testing
- Security vulnerability scanning
- Documentation updates
We ship monthly updates. Not annually. Monthly.
Lesson 5: Transparent Pricing
We learned from iText's AGPL trap. IronPDF pricing is upfront:
- $749 per developer
- Perpetual license (no forced annual renewals)
- No runtime fees
- No hidden costs
Customers appreciate honesty.
The Future: What's Next for IronPDF
.NET 11 and Beyond (2026+)
Commitment: Day-zero support for every .NET release.
AI Integration (2025-2026)
Emerging use case: Generate PDFs from AI-generated content.
Example:
using IronPdf;
using OpenAI;
// Generate PDF from AI-created content
var openai = new OpenAIClient("api-key");
var response = await openai.Completions.CreateAsync("Generate an invoice for...");
var renderer = new ChromePdfRenderer();
var pdf = renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf(response.Content);
pdf.SaveAs("ai-invoice.pdf");
We're exploring:
- AI-assisted PDF template generation
- Intelligent text extraction (understanding context, not just OCR)
- Automated redaction (detect and redact PII automatically)
WebAssembly and Blazor (2025)
Customer request: Generate PDFs client-side in Blazor WebAssembly.
Challenge: Chromium rendering engine is too large for WASM.
Our approach: Hybrid model (lightweight client, heavy rendering server-side).
Sustainability: 10-Year Support Commitment
Promise:
If you buy IronPDF in 2025, it will still work in 2035.
How we'll do it:
- Maintain backward compatibility
- Support legacy .NET versions for 10 years
- Continue security patches even after feature freeze
Why this matters:
Enterprises build applications that last decades. They need libraries they can trust.
Why We Built IronPDF This Way
Open Source vs Commercial: Our Philosophy
Why IronPDF is commercial, not open source:
- Sustainability — Open source maintainers burn out. Commercial funding enables full-time engineers.
- Support — Free libraries have community support (Stack Overflow). Commercial libraries have SLAs.
- Security — We patch vulnerabilities within 30 days. Open source projects often take months.
- Features — Revenue funds R&D (Chromium updates, new features, performance improvements).
What we learned from iText's AGPL approach:
Disguising commercial software as "open source" erodes trust. We're upfront: IronPDF is commercial. Here's the price. Here's what you get.
Customers respect honesty.
Team Culture: Remote-First, Developer-Centric
How we work:
- Fully remote (50+ engineers across 12 time zones)
- Async communication (documentation, not meetings)
- Trust and autonomy (engineers own features end-to-end)
- Continuous learning (conference budgets, book budgets, training)
Why this works:
Happy engineers build better software. Our retention rate is 95%.
The Bottom Line: What IronPDF Represents
IronPDF is more than a library:
It's a commitment to:
- ✅ Solving real problems (modern HTML rendering, not 2013 hacks)
- ✅ Developer experience (3 lines of code, not 30)
- ✅ Production reliability (50+ engineers, not one person's side project)
- ✅ Long-term support (10-year commitment, not abandoned after 2 years)
- ✅ Transparent pricing (no AGPL traps, no hidden fees)
From one developer's frustration to 50+ engineers serving 10,000+ companies:
That's IronPDF's journey.
If you're building .NET applications that generate PDFs, you're building on 12 years of hard-won lessons, continuous improvement, and a team that cares about making your job easier.
Learn more at IronPDF.com
Written by Jacob Mellor, CTO at Iron Software. Jacob created IronPDF and leads a team of 50+ engineers building .NET document processing libraries.
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