High-Performance Blade PDFs in Laravel 12+ without Node.js

#laravel #php #webdev #opensource

Generating PDFs in Laravel has historically forced developers to choose between two painful trade-offs:

Pure-PHP tools (Dompdf, mPDF): They struggle or completely break on modern CSS like Flexbox, CSS Grid, and Tailwind CSS.
Node-based bridges (Browsershot, Puppeteer): They require running and maintaining a full Node.js / NPM sidecar runtime on your production web server.

To solve this, we built zentiq-labs/laravel-fast-pdf — an open-source Laravel bridge designed for high-performance PDF rendering directly from Blade views.

How It Works

Instead of spawning a heavy Node.js process, laravel-fast-pdf connects directly to the server's headless Chromium binary via Inter-Process Communication (IPC). You get pixel-perfect modern CSS/Tailwind rendering at sub-second speeds, without needing Node.js or Puppeteer installed on your server.

Installation

Install the package via Composer:

composer require zentiq-labs/laravel-fast-pdf

Make sure Chromium or Google Chrome is installed on your server:

sudo apt install chromium-browser

Usage

Generate and download a PDF straight from a Blade view using the fluent FastPdf facade:

use ZentiqLabs\FastPdf\Laravel\Facades\FastPdf;

class InvoiceController extends Controller
{
    public function download(Order $order)
    {
        return FastPdf::view('invoices.show', ['order' => $order])
            ->paperSize('A4')
            ->landscape()
            ->download("invoice-{$order->id}.pdf");
    }
}

Key Features

Sub-Second Speeds: Instant Blade-to-PDF rendering over server IPC.
Modern CSS Support: Native rendering for Tailwind CSS, Flexbox, and CSS Grid.
Zero Node.js Runtime: Only requires the standalone server Chromium binary.
Laravel 12+ Ready: Includes facade bindings, interface abstractions for easy test mocking, and publishable configuration.

Open Source & Links

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/zentiqlabs/laravel-fast-pdf
Packagist: https://packagist.org/packages/zentiq-labs/laravel-fast-pdf

We’d love to hear your feedback! Feel free to drop a star on GitHub or open an issue/PR.

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