Overview
Gotenberg is a Docker-based microservice that wraps Chromium and LibreOffice behind a clean HTTP API for document conversion. It converts HTML, Markdown, and URLs to PDF using headless Chromium, and converts Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) to PDF via LibreOffice. The API supports page ranges, headers/footers, PDF/A output, and merging. It is designed as a stateless sidecar service for web applications that need server-side PDF generation without bundling a rendering engine.
Where it falls short of Notion
- Conversion-only API; no storage, user interface, or document management.
- Complex CSS layouts and JavaScript-heavy pages may render inconsistently with headless Chromium.
- LibreOffice fidelity for intricate Word/Excel formatting can differ from native Office rendering.
- No built-in rate limiting or authentication — must be secured at the reverse proxy level.
We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.
Tags
Claim this listing to keep it accurate, add a deploy template, or feature it on relevant pages.
Embed the Gotenberg difficulty badge in your README — it links back here.
[](https://openreplace.com/gotenberg)Similar open-source projects
Other self-hostable tools in the same space worth comparing.
Open-source Notion alternative built on Flutter and Rust
Locally hosted web app for merging, splitting, converting, and OCR-ing PDFs
Privacy-first, local-first workspace combining docs, whiteboards, and databases
Lightweight, self-hosted note-taking and memo hub