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I am trying to render about 100,000 - 80 column records through FOP and it tanks pretty much everytime (OutOfMemoryException). I know iText could handle that kind of load but I can't use it because of the LGPL license. Are there any alternative Java libraries to iText that can handle rendering a high volume of data to PDF?
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We have compiled a list of solutions that reviewers voted as the best overall alternatives and competitors to iText PDF library/SDK, including Foxit PDF Editor, PDFelement, Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition, and Adobe Acrobat DC.
One major difference is that PDFBox always processes text glyph by glyph while iText normally processes it chunk (i.e. single string parameter of text drawing operation) by chunk; that reduces the required resources in iText quite a lot.
To answer your question: iText can be used for free in situations where you also distribute your software for free. As soon as you want to use iText in a closed source, proprietary environment, you have to pay for your use of iText.
The short answer is, yes, iText is open source.
There are commercial PDF generating libraries, such as BFO and ElegantJ. If you need open source, there is PDFBox, but I don't know if it is production ready.
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Have a look at RenderX for an alternative to FOP.
It costs money, but if you have an existing solution in place that might be the cheapest.
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