Grover Alternative in 2026: Rails PDF Without Node.js

The Grover Problem

The grover gem is elegant: it wraps Puppeteer via a Node.js process and lets you generate PDFs from your Rails views using the full power of Chrome's rendering engine. In development, it just works.

In production, especially on Heroku, Render, or Elastic Beanstalk, you hit the walls:

• Node.js dependency — your Ruby app now needs a Node.js runtime installed system-wide
• Chromium binary — 280MB+ binary that must be installed and maintained
• Memory spikes — each PDF generation spawns a browser process; concurrent requests can easily hit 1-2GB RAM
• Shared dyno limits — Heroku's standard-2x dyno (1GB RAM) can crash under moderate PDF load
• Platform drift — Chromium works differently on macOS dev vs Ubuntu production

Alternatives at a Glance

Option 1: wicked_pdf / PDFKit

The traditional Rails PDF gems. Both use wkhtmltopdf as the rendering engine — an old but widely-used HTML-to-PDF converter. The good news: no Node.js. The bad news: wkhtmltopdf uses a Chromium 72-era engine and doesn't support modern CSS (flexbox is broken, CSS grid doesn't work, modern web fonts are inconsistent).

# Gemfile
gem 'wicked_pdf'
gem 'wkhtmltopdf-binary'  # includes the binary for Linux/macOS

# app/controllers/invoices_controller.rb
def show
  @invoice = Invoice.find(params[:id])
  respond_to do |format|
    format.html
    format.pdf do
      render pdf: "invoice-#{@invoice.number}",
             template: "invoices/show",
             layout: "pdf",
             page_size: "A4",
             margin: { top: 15, bottom: 15, left: 10, right: 10 }
    end
  end
end

Option 2: Prawn (Pure Ruby)

Prawn generates PDFs programmatically using a Ruby DSL — no browser, no binary, just a gem. The tradeoff: you build the layout in Ruby code rather than HTML/CSS, which is more work but gives you complete control:

# Gemfile
gem 'prawn'
gem 'prawn-table'  # for tables

# lib/pdf/invoice_generator.rb
class InvoiceGenerator
  def initialize(invoice)
    @invoice = invoice
  end

  def generate
    Prawn::Document.new(page_size: "A4") do |pdf|
      pdf.font_families.update("Inter" => { normal: "app/assets/fonts/Inter-Regular.ttf",
                                              bold: "app/assets/fonts/Inter-Bold.ttf" })
      pdf.font "Inter"

      # Header
      pdf.text "Invoice ##{@invoice.number}", size: 28, style: :bold
      pdf.move_down 10
      pdf.text "Date: #{@invoice.created_at.strftime('%B %d, %Y')}", size: 12

      pdf.move_down 30

      # Line items table
      pdf.table(@invoice.line_items.map { |item| [item.description, item.quantity, item.price] },
                headers: ["Description", "Qty", "Price"],
                width: pdf.bounds.width)

      pdf.move_down 20
      pdf.text "Total: #{number_to_currency(@invoice.total)}", size: 16, style: :bold, align: :right
    end.render
  end
end

# Usage in controller
def show
  @invoice = Invoice.find(params[:id])
  respond_to do |format|
    format.pdf do
      pdf = InvoiceGenerator.new(@invoice).generate
      send_data pdf, filename: "invoice-#{@invoice.number}.pdf", type: "application/pdf"
    end
  end
end

Option 3: SnapAPI (No Binary, Full CSS)

SnapAPI gives you Grover-quality rendering (real Chromium) without the Node.js dependency. You render your Rails view to HTML, POST it to the SnapAPI REST endpoint, and get back a PDF binary. Works on any hosting platform:

# Gemfile
gem 'faraday'  # or use Net::HTTP directly

# app/services/pdf_generator.rb
class PdfGenerator
  SNAPAPI_URL = 'https://api.snapapi.pics/v1/screenshot'.freeze

  def initialize(html:, format: 'A4')
    @html = html
    @format = format
  end

  def generate
    conn = Faraday.new do |f|
      f.response :raise_error
    end

    response = conn.post(SNAPAPI_URL) do |req|
      req.headers['X-Api-Key'] = ENV['SNAPAPI_KEY']
      req.headers['Content-Type'] = 'application/json'
      req.body = {
        html: @html,
        format: 'pdf',
        pdf_format: @format,
        print_background: true,
        viewport_width: 1024,
        wait_until: 'networkidle',
      }.to_json
    end

    response.body
  end
end

# app/controllers/invoices_controller.rb
def show
  @invoice = Invoice.find(params[:id])
  respond_to do |format|
    format.html
    format.pdf do
      html = render_to_string(template: 'invoices/show', layout: 'pdf')
      pdf = PdfGenerator.new(html: html).generate
      send_data pdf,
                filename: "invoice-#{@invoice.number}.pdf",
                type: 'application/pdf',
                disposition: 'inline'
    end
  end
end

Inlining CSS in Rails views

<%# app/views/layouts/pdf.html.erb %>


  
    
    
  
  
    <%= yield %>
  

Pricing Comparison

Which to Choose

Get started with SnapAPI's free tier — 200 calls/month, no credit card required.