PHP PDF Generation in 2026: Dompdf vs mPDF vs TCPDF — Which One Should You Actually Use?

If your PHP application has ever needed to turn HTML into a PDF, you have stared at the same three names: Dompdf, mPDF, and TCPDF. For a decade the default answer was “just use TCPDF” — but in 2026 that answer is actively wrong: TCPDF’s maintainer has officially deprecated it, mPDF’s GPL license is a legal trap for commercial products, and Dompdf quietly became the safest default. This article gives you the current state of all three — real stars, real licenses, real code — plus the migration checklist TCPDF users now need.

TL;DR — Quick Verdict

Use Dompdf for new projects. It is the most popular (11,177 stars), under LGPL-2.1 (compatible with proprietary software), actively maintained, and its CSS 2.1 engine covers the invoice/report use case better than anything else in pure PHP. Use mPDF only when you need serious typography — RTL text, CJK support, advanced CSS — and you either accept GPL-2.0 or buy a commercial license. Do not start new projects with TCPDF. It is officially deprecated and in maintenance-only mode; feature development moved to tc-lib-pdf, and the font system changed under everyone’s feet.

At a Glance — The Comparison Table

All stats fetched live from GitHub on 2026-08-26.

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Dompdf — The Safe Default for HTML to PDF

Dompdf is, at its heart, “a CSS 2.1 compliant HTML layout and rendering engine written in PHP.” That sentence matters: it is not a drawing library — you hand it HTML and it lays it out. The Quick Start from the official README is the entire mental model:

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// reference the Dompdf namespace
use Dompdf\Dompdf;

// instantiate and use the dompdf class
$dompdf = new Dompdf();
$dompdf->loadHtml('hello world');

// (Optional) Setup the paper size and orientation
$dompdf->setPaper('A4', 'landscape');

// Render the HTML as PDF
$dompdf->render();

// Output the generated PDF to Browser
$dompdf->stream();

Options are set via a dedicated Options class — $options->set('defaultFont', 'Courier') — and external stylesheets, inline style tags, @import, @media, and @page rules are all respected. Fonts: Dompdf embeds any font referenced via CSS @font-face (pre-loaded or accessible), and ships DejaVu Sans/Serif/Mono out of the box for decent Unicode coverage.

The licensing story is the reason Dompdf wins for business software. LGPL-2.1 lets you link the library into proprietary applications without releasing your own source — you only have to make changes to Dompdf itself available. For a SaaS product or a closed-source internal tool, that is the difference between shipping and a legal review.

Where Dompdf falls short: CSS 2.1, not CSS3. No flexbox, no grid, limited position support. If your designers style for the browser first and the PDF second, expect layout drift — and budget for a “PDF stylesheet” early.

mPDF — The Typography Powerhouse (License Caveat)

mPDF generates PDFs “from UTF-8 encoded HTML,” and its real strength is text: full UTF-8 handling, strong RTL (Arabic, Hebrew) support, CJK with proper fonts, and a much larger CSS subset than Dompdf. Since version 7.0 the basic usage is deceptively simple:

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require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$mpdf = new \Mpdf\Mpdf();
$mpdf->WriteHTML('<h1>Hello world!</h1>');
$mpdf->Output();

That outputs the PDF inline to the browser as application/pdf. For real documents you configure page size, margins, headers/footers, and fonts in the Mpdf constructor options array.

The license trap is real and frequently discovered late. mPDF is GPL-2.0. If you distribute a closed-source application that embeds mPDF — a desktop app, a commercial plugin, a proprietary SaaS deliverable shipped to customers — GPL obligations kick in. mPDF’s maintainers offer a commercial license precisely for this; budget for it, or choose Dompdf. This is the same calculation Java teams face with iText’s AGPL, which we cover in our Java PDF library comparison.

Operational caveats from the official README: mPDF needs optional PHP extensions for advanced features — zlib for compression of output and embedded fonts, bcmath for barcode generation, xml for character-set conversion and SVG. And it “has some problems with fetching external HTTP resources with single-threaded servers such as php -S” — the README explicitly recommends nginx (php-fpm) or Apache. If your dev environment is php -S and your PDFs reference remote images, they will silently break.

TCPDF — Deprecated, and the Font System Just Moved

TCPDF’s story changed permanently in 2026. The README now opens with a Deprecation Notice: “TCPDF is deprecated and in maintenance-only mode. Active feature development has moved to tc-lib-pdf, the modern and modular successor. For new projects, use tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf.” Legacy systems get critical compatibility fixes; nothing else.

If that were the whole story, the advice would be simple. It is not — because the TCPDF repository also shipped a modern-engine rewrite whose compatibility is documented with unusual honesty:

• The public API is unchanged. All 291 public method signatures remain; existing code keeps calling new TCPDF(...), AddPage(), SetFont(), Cell(), writeHTML(), Output() exactly as before.
• Rendering moved to the tc-lib-* libraries (text layout, HTML/CSS, fonts, graphics, barcodes, encryption, signatures). A machine-verified MAPPING.md tracks every method’s delegation status.
• Output is structurally equivalent, not byte-identical. Line-breaking and font metrics differ slightly; long documents may paginate one page earlier or later. Regression tests that diff PDFs byte-for-byte will break.
• Legacy behaviors were dropped: legacy font definitions, EPS vector import, always-on stream compression, policy-based local file access.

The font migration is the part that will bite existing users hardest. Repository-shipped fonts/ assets are gone; fonts now resolve from vendor/tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf-font/target/fonts/:

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require __DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php';

// Optional: override only if you need a non-default path.
define('K_PATH_FONTS', __DIR__.'/vendor/tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf-font/target/fonts/');

$pdf->SetFont('helvetica', '', 11);

Two breaking details from the official migration path: legacy PHP font descriptors (fontname.php + fontname.z) are no longer supported — convert the original TTF/OTF with the tc-lib-pdf-font importer instead — and any deployment that assumed a repository-relative fonts/ folder (custom K_PATH_FONTS overrides) must repackage to ship vendor/ assets in production.

Pitfalls and Migration Notes

• Design for PDF, not for the browser. All three engines render a subset of CSS. Dompdf is CSS 2.1; mPDF supports more but not everything; TCPDF’s HTML support is a table-based approximation. Maintain a separate PDF stylesheet and test every template — this advice is identical across languages, as our Python PDF library comparison and JavaScript PDF guide confirm.
• CJK text requires fonts, everywhere. Dompdf’s DejaVu fonts do not cover CJK; mPDF needs you to register a CJK font; TCPDF’s core fonts are Windows-ANSI only. Embedding a CJK font adds megabytes to the binary — test memory limits.
• Memory and execution time limits. Rendering a 500-page report in any of these libraries is CPU- and RAM-hungry. Run PDF generation in a queue worker, not in the request thread — or users will hit memory_limit and max_execution_time at the worst moment.
• php -S breaks remote resources in mPDF. Single-threaded dev server + external images/fonts = intermittent failures. Use nginx + php-fpm locally.
• mPDF + GPL: decide before you build, not before you ship. If the product is closed-source, Dompdf (LGPL) or an mPDF commercial license are the two clean paths.
• TCPDF migrations: freeze your output tests first. Because the modern engine’s output is structurally equivalent but not byte-identical, your golden-file comparisons will need re-baselining. The README’s safe-migration checklist: require tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf, confirm font assets under vendor/.../target/fonts/, smoke-test headers/body/bold-italic/RTL/Unicode, remove stale K_PATH_FONTS overrides, then re-run regression comparisons.
• Your PDF stack is part of your PHP toolchain. Dompdf, mPDF, and even the new tc-lib-pdf all install cleanly via Composer. For the broader PHP ecosystem story — including how the language’s mature libraries handle their own licensing — see our PHP email library comparison.

FAQ

Q: Is TCPDF still supported in 2026? A: Only in maintenance mode. The official README declares TCPDF deprecated, with active development moved to tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf. Critical compatibility fixes still land (last push August 2026), but new projects should not start on TCPDF.

Q: Dompdf vs mPDF — which license is safer for a commercial product? A: Dompdf (LGPL-2.1) is safer: you can use it in proprietary software without releasing your source as long as you do not modify Dompdf itself. mPDF is GPL-2.0 — distributing closed-source software that embeds it requires a commercial license from the maintainers.

Q: Can Dompdf handle CJK or Arabic text? A: Dompdf bundles DejaVu fonts for broad Unicode coverage, but full CJK requires registering custom fonts via @font-face. For serious RTL/CJK typography, mPDF is the stronger engine.

Q: What changed with TCPDF fonts after the rewrite? A: Repository-shipped fonts/ assets were removed; fonts now resolve from vendor/tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf-font/target/fonts/. Legacy PHP font descriptors (fontname.php + fontname.z) are no longer supported — convert TTFs with the tc-lib-pdf-font importer.

Q: Which PHP PDF library has the most stars? A: Dompdf leads with 11,177 GitHub stars, followed by mPDF at 4,700 and TCPDF at 4,537 (as of 2026-08-26). Dompdf is also the most recently active of the two actively maintained options.

Q: Do these libraries work with Composer? A: Yes. Dompdf (dompdf/dompdf) and mPDF (mpdf/mpdf) are standard Composer packages. TCPDF’s legacy package still resolves, but the recommended Composer-first successor is tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf, with font assets in tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf-font.

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