codetoimage vs htmlcsstoimage
An honest side-by-side from the team building codetoimage. We acknowledge what they do better, show where we win, and tell you when to pick which.
TL;DR
- ✅ Pick codetoimage if you ship to AI agents (Claude, Cursor), want a one-line npm CLI, or want to pay half at the entry tier.
- ✅ Pick htmlcsstoimageif you need their Mustache templates, PDF output, or webhooks (we don't ship those today), or you've been running on them happily since 2018.
- ⚖️ Core API shape is similar — migration is one URL + one header change for most users.
Side-by-side
| Feature | codetoimage | htmlcsstoimage |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2026 | ✓ 2018 |
| REST API | POST /v1/render — single endpoint | POST /v1/image — single endpoint |
| Free tier | 50 renders/mo (watermarked, 800×800, PNG) | 50 renders/mo (watermarked) |
| Starting paid price | ✓ Hobby from $7/mo | $14/mo (1k renders) |
| Output formats | PNG, JPEG, WebP | ✓ PNG, JPEG, WebP, PDF |
| URL output (hosted image) | Yes — CDN-served, 24h TTL | Yes — S3-backed |
| Max resolution (paid) | 2048×2048 | ✓ Unstated, ~3500×3500 in practice |
| Official CLI on npm | ✓ Yes — @codetoimage/cli | No |
| Official MCP server | Yes — stdio via npx | Yes — hosted (mcp.hcti.io) |
| Listed in Anthropic MCP Registry | ✓ Yes — io.github.beznazwiska/codetoimage-mcp-server | No |
| Template system | Not available today | ✓ Yes — Mustache-based |
| Webhooks (async) | Not available today | ✓ Yes |
| Render engine | Headless Chromium (Puppeteer) | Headless Chromium (proprietary) |
| Median response (1200×630 PNG) | ✓ ~600ms (always-hot) | ~700-900ms (advertised) |
Where we win
We're the only HTML-to-image MCP in Anthropic's registry. Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, Zed — they all index registry.modelcontextprotocol.io. htmlcsstoimage runs a hosted MCP at mcp.hcti.io, but you have to configure it manually. Ours installs by name.
Official CLI on npm. npm i -g @codetoimage/cliand you're rendering from your terminal or CI in 30 seconds. htmlcsstoimage has no official CLI — community Python/Ruby wrappers exist, but nothing first-party.
Cheaper at the entry tier. Hobby is $7/mo vs their $14/mo. If you're rendering under 3k images/month you save roughly half.
Agent-first design. The MCP server exposes two well-named tools (render_html_to_image for inline, render_html_to_url for embed-elsewhere) so an LLM picks the right one without prompting. htmlcsstoimage exposes nine tools — more surface area, more confusion for the model.
Where they win
Eight years of production scale. htmlcsstoimage has been serving image renders since 2018. If uptime track record is your top criterion and you can pay for it, they have receipts we don't yet.
Templates. They ship Mustache-based template variables out of the box, which is great for marketing teams generating thousands of variants from a single design. We don't ship templates today — if you need them, stay on htmlcsstoimage.
PDF output + webhooks. We don't ship either today. If you need them, they're the safer bet.
Migrating from htmlcsstoimage
For most setups it's a three-line change. Their request shape and ours map almost 1:1.
# before (htmlcsstoimage)
curl -X POST https://hcti.io/v1/image \
-u "USER_ID:API_KEY" \
-d 'html=<h1>Hi</h1>'
# after (codetoimage)
curl -X POST https://api.codetoimage.app/v1/render \
-H "X-API-Key: cti_live_…" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"html":"<h1>Hi</h1>"}' \
-o out.pngTry the difference in 30 seconds
Sandbox is free — 50 renders/month, no credit card. Drop us in wherever you have htmlcsstoimage today and compare side by side.
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