Crates / pdfium-render / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 27, 2026
Alternatives to pdfium-render
Short answerThe closest alternatives to pdfium-render on crates.io data are web-time (1.1M real downloads a day), plotters (647K real downloads a day), wasite (348K real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is web-time, and 6 shipped a release in the last year. pdfium-render itself gets 14,845 a day with 74 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs pdfium-render | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| web-time Widely used | 1,133,377 | 76.35x | 1,163 | 2.6y | category API bindings, category WebAssembly | compare |
| plotters Established | 647,354 | 43.61x | 534 | 2.1y | category Visualization, category WebAssembly | compare |
| wasite Pulled in | 348,285 | 23.46x | 1 | 10mo | category API bindings, category WebAssembly | compare |
| gloo-timers Established | 301,185 | 20.29x | 445 | 7mo | category API bindings, category WebAssembly | compare |
| lopdf Established | 141,599 | 9.54x | 400 | 6d | keyword "pdf" | compare |
| pdf-extract Established | 37,810 | 2.55x | 285 | 41d | keyword "pdf" | compare |
| printpdf Established | 19,068 | 1.28x | 105 | 52d | keyword "pdf" | compare |
| pdf Pulled in | 763 | 0.05x | 17 | 8mo | keyword "pdf" | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with pdfium-render; read its description before you swap.
- More dependents means more answered questions and a smaller chance it disappears.
- Check the last release against how fast you need fixes. For pdfium-render: is it still maintained?
Rules
Alternatives = tracked crates (top 1000 by downloads) that share a specific crates.io category (2 points each) or keyword (3 points each) with pdfium-render, most similar first; its own parts (same name prefix) and crates it depends on or that depend on it are left out, because those are companions, not substitutes. Real downloads = quiet-day median, crates.io data Oct 27, 2026. Built when we find 3 or more.
Up next
The closest alternative: Widely used and quiet for years. 1,133,377 real downloads a day.web-timeRust crate. Drop-in replacement for std::time for Wasm in browsers. Real use: 1.1M downloads a day on quiet days; 1,163 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time
Art: Nicholas Roerich, Nag Lake (1925). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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