Comparison
Formfeed as an apitemplate.io alternative
apitemplate.io is the service Formfeed was designed to replace for European teams: it renders Jinja2 templates to PDF and images from a JSON API, priced in USD, with regional hosts in Singapore, Frankfurt, the US and Australia. Formfeed keeps the Jinja2 syntax and offers compatibility endpoints, so an existing integration moves by changing the base URL and the key, and adds an editor with autocomplete, diagnostics and a paginated preview, templates as files with a CLI and tests, and rendering in Frankfurt under a DPA.
Last checked 2026-10-17 · apitemplate.io: pricing page
Free plan with 100 units a month, no credit card
| Formfeed | apitemplate.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Template languages | Jinja2, Liquid and Handlebars with the same helpers; the same tags in your own Word and PowerPoint files (Starter and above) | Jinja2 (Python) with custom filters |
| Template editing | Code editor in the browser with autocomplete, diagnostics and a paginated preview in which the wording can be edited; a canvas for image templates (beta); templates also as files with CLI, hot-reload dev server and test helpers | HTML editor with tabs for template, CSS, sample JSON and settings and a quick preview without header and footer; a visual (WYSIWYG) editor for simple documents |
| Data residency | EU only: database and rendering in Frankfurt, files in Cloudflare R2 under EU jurisdiction; a document leaves the EU only for a bucket of your own that you configure; DPA with every paid plan (data residency) | Regional hosts in Singapore (the default), Frankfurt, US East and Sydney; requests and files are processed and stored in the region you call |
| Pricing | EUR plans from €19 a month with included units (one unit is an image or a PDF of up to five pages), extra units at the plan’s rate per 1,000, and a free plan with 100 units; test keys are not metered | USD plans by images and PDFs per month, PDF-only plans from $19 and a free plan with 50; pay-as-you-go above the quota on Enterprise plans only |
| Batches | Batch endpoint for up to 1,000 documents per request, with a zip and a webhook; spreadsheet upload in the app | One document per request; asynchronous generation with a webhook |
| Reproducibility | Every render records a checksum of the template version, the Chromium build and a SHA-256 of the output (reproducibility) | Not stated |
| AI agents (MCP) | MCP server @formfeed/mcp with eight tools, among them checks of templates and e-invoices that cost no units; setup guides for 18 clients and frameworks; hosted at mcp.formfeed.dev with an API key or sign-in | No first-party MCP server; reachable through Zapier MCP |
| Migration | Importer that reads HTML, CSS, settings and sample JSON with your apitemplate.io API key and reports what needs a look; four compatibility endpoints answer in their response shape, and templates imported in the app keep their template_id (compatibility endpoints) | — |
When apitemplate.io fits better
If your documents must be rendered and stored outside the EU, apitemplate.io’s regional hosts cover the US, Singapore and Australia; Formfeed renders in Frankfurt only. Its drag-and-drop image templates do not move either: they have no HTML for the importer to read, so they are rebuilt on Formfeed’s canvas.
Switching in three steps
- In Templates → Import → apitemplate.io, enter your API key and the region your integration calls, and pick single templates, a group or all of them, or run
formfeed import apitemplate --all; the report lists Python-only constructs and unknown filters, and each template becomes a draft. - Check each draft in the editor and publish it: the compatibility endpoints render the published version. The import’s optional compare step renders the original with your apitemplate.io key, so you can put both PDFs side by side first.
- Point your integration at
https://api-eu.formfeed.dev/v1/compat/apitemplate/create-pdfwith a Formfeed key in the sameX-API-KEYheader. Request and response keep their shape, and templates imported in the app answer to their apitemplate.iotemplate_id. Or switch to/v1/rendersfor the full API.
Competitor details come from their public pages on the date above and are reviewed quarterly; tell us at hello@formfeed.dev if something changed.