Pliego is an open-source native HTML-to-PDF engine built on Servo for application-owned invoices, statements, and operational reports. It turns HTML and CSS into paginated PDFs without Chromium, Node.js, or Java in the runtime.
Current stable line: Pliego 0.3 / API 2. Recommended build: v0.3.3.
Pliego focuses on document workflows whose inputs and failure boundaries can be made explicit:
- authored page breaks, paged tables, repeated headers, and row constraints;
- selectable text and embedded TTF, OTF, WOFF, and WOFF2 fonts;
- an offline API 2 input closure containing the exact authorized stylesheets, images, scripts, and fonts;
- typed failures and retained input, resource, scene, PDF, and diagnostic artifacts; and
- native bundles for Linux x86_64, Windows x86_64, macOS x86_64, and macOS arm64.
These are exact outputs from the published Pliego v0.3.2 Linux bundle using API 2. The operating report exercises selectable text, an embedded WOFF2 font, fixed-width tables, and deterministic page geometry. The invoice adds an authored page break, line items, calculated totals, and a terms page. Exact input, request, runtime, and artifact hashes are retained in the showcase manifest.
The Laravel package installs the exact PHP bridge and downloads the package-pinned native runtime:
composer require oxhq/pliego-laravel:^0.3.3
php artisan pliego:install
php artisan pliego:doctorFor a business document that must outlive Pliego's prunable retained job, render once and stream the validated PDF into Laravel Storage:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
use Pliego\Laravel\Facades\Document;
$stored = Document::view('invoice', ['rows' => $rows])->store(
path: 'invoices/42.pdf',
disk: 'local',
);
return Storage::disk($stored->disk)->download(
$stored->path,
'invoice.pdf',
);Pliego opens the validated PDF as a stream and passes it to Laravel Storage instead
of reading the complete PDF into a PHP string. The configured filesystem adapter
owns downstream buffering. store() returns the durable disk and path together with
the underlying render identity and retained evidence. A storage failure is distinct
from a render failure and is never reported as a stored document.
For a direct HTTP response that does not need durable application storage:
use Pliego\Laravel\Facades\Document;
return Document::view('invoices.show', ['invoice' => $invoice])
->locale('es-MX')
->timezone('America/Tijuana')
->asset('fonts/invoice.woff2', resource_path('fonts/invoice.woff2'))
->download('invoice.pdf');Static Blade views need no readiness calls. Pliego infers readiness after page load
and waits for document.fonts.ready. Call defer() only when JavaScript keeps
changing the document or a canvas after load, then finish with ready() or
fail():
<script>
window.pliego?.defer();
loadReportData()
.then(drawReport)
.then(() => window.pliego?.ready())
.catch(error => window.pliego?.fail(error.message));
</script>API 2 never fetches live network resources or discovers host fonts. Fetch reviewed
remote resources in the application, then provide their exact bytes with asset().
The support profile distinguishes the broader
controlled-capture regression corpus from the narrower operations that v0.3.3 API 2
can encode and publish exactly.
Ubuntu 22.04 x86_64 needs ca-certificates, libfontconfig1, libegl1, and
libgl1-mesa-dri. Headless containers also need a writable mode-0700
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR; no display server or Xvfb is required. Windows x64 requires the
latest Microsoft Visual C++ v14 Redistributable.
macOS Intel and Apple Silicon bundles require macOS 13 or newer. The Intel binary is
unsigned and Apple Silicon is ad-hoc signed; neither is Developer ID signed or
notarized.
pliego:install verifies the runtime size and SHA-256 before installation.
pliego:doctor checks API negotiation, writable storage, the bundled font, and an
offline PDF render. See the Laravel package guide for asset
materialization, queues, durable storage, typed failures, and retention.
Native integrations should discover the contract rather than infer it from a version string:
pliego --contract-probePliego 0.3 advertises one profile-null API 2 tuple: input manifest v1, render request
v1, render result v1, DocumentScene v2, and bundle manifest v1. render-api2
accepts one canonical request on stdin from an exclusive cwd-v1 job root and returns
one terminal result plus a hash-bound delivery closure. The PHP and Laravel packages
build that closure, negotiate the exact tuple, and verify the result.
The API 1 pliego render route remains only as a deprecated migration boundary.
New integrations should not build against it. See
ADR 0018 for the wire
contract and the support profile for the remaining
API 1 compatibility details.
Semantic and accessible-PDF profiles are deliberately unadvertised until their separate release and evidence gates are satisfied.
Link annotations are also outside the advertised v0.3.3 API 2 profile. Inputs that
produce a link operation without exact fixed-point authority fail closed with
SCENE_ENCODING_FAILED; no PDF is delivered.
The published minimal-static snapshot measures the released Pliego v0.3.3 bundle and the
version-locked adapter dependency graphs for dompdf 3.1.6 and Browsershot 5.4.0 with Puppeteer
25.8.0. Every displayed value comes from the sealed three-repeat series; the table shows each
fresh VM's p50 wall time and the complete between-run range.
| Renderer | Repeat 1 p50 (ms) | Repeat 2 p50 (ms) | Repeat 3 p50 (ms) | p50 range (ms) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Browsershot 5.4.0 + Puppeteer 25.8.0 (cold Chromium adapter) | 1117.57 | 947.887 | 879.863 | 879.863 to 1117.57 |
| dompdf 3.1.6 (cold Composer adapter) | 531.282 | 330.605 | 313.688 | 313.688 to 531.282 |
| Pliego 0.3.3 (published API 2 bundle) | 558.748 | 558.546 | 447.58 | 447.58 to 558.748 |
Browsershot's Node/Chromium generic temporary storage uses a disclosed private tmpfs TMPDIR; it remains charged to cgroup memory but is outside block-device I/O. Its PHP TMPDIR, HOME/XDG roots, explicit Chromium profile, artifacts, and PDF remain on measured ext4. This target-specific storage accommodation can affect wall time; see the methodology.
All 900 timed samples passed the shared PDF oracle. Three correctness-gated repeats on GitHub-hosted VMs; repeat-to-repeat spread is retained, no best or canonical repeat is selected, and the series is not dedicated-host evidence or a general production-performance ranking.
Full comparative aggregate report and spread · Immutable evidence release
Authoritative tables and production rankings remain N/A until the stricter dedicated-host, immutable-runtime, and canonical-oracle gates pass. Read the exact boundary and reproduction commands in the benchmark methodology.
Native bundles are built and API-smoked on all four targets in the package matrix. The PHP package and Laravel package are published on Packagist and pass focused hosted package checks.
These checks prove release mechanics and the declared fixture boundary. Pliego does not claim browser-wide compatibility, safe rendering of hostile HTML, PDF/UA, cross-platform byte determinism, or performance leadership. The latest exact tag and native assets on GitHub Releases are the publication authority.
Read the Pliego 0.3 launch overview, then use:
We are looking for PHP/Laravel teams willing to evaluate v0.3.3 against one application-owned invoice, statement, or operational-report family. Share the platform, deployment shape, install/doctor outcome, and retained failure kind—but never confidential HTML or retained artifacts—in GitHub Discussions.
./mach bootstrap
cargo build -p pliego --locked --profile checked-releaseOn Windows, run ./mach as ./mach.bat or python mach from a configured
Servo build environment.
Pliego preserves Servo's source layout so upstream security and web-platform fixes
can be reviewed without rewriting the fork. The upstream-main branch mirrors
Servo main; temporary sync/servo-YYYY-MM-DD branches carry reviewed updates
into Pliego. Servo build documentation remains available in the
Servo Book.
The engine is MPL-2.0. The PHP and Laravel packages are MIT-licensed. See CONTRIBUTING.md, SECURITY.md, and the third-party notices.