He is a well known figure in the TeX community and has created a (open-source [2]/self-hostable) document creation solution on top of LuaTeX.
You can simply run that from the command-line and integrate it in your workflow but it also comes with a server integration that provides you with a REST API.
Admittedly there is some kind of learning curve (even for LaTeX literate people as he is using an XML/HTML abstraction layer on top of it) - but that also keeps it interesting for users who have never played mich with any TeX-language prior to that date.
[1]: https://www.speedata.de/en/ [2]: https://github.com/speedata/publisher
I'm not strictly opposed to the idea of self-hosting, although it would be far easier to pull out the API + queue + worker elements of the product rather than allowing self-hosting the whole thing. That way you self-host the production side and the document data doesn't leave your servers (which is likely to be a big deal for many businesses), but your templates and API calls are compatible with the online version of Creodocs. I'll try to get some more feedback on the pricing model and think about it myself, since it sounds like it's a bad one now. Thanks again for your feedback!
If something seems like a dark pattern, it is. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the ultimate judge of what is dark/what's not is the end user, and sending them a leaflet about how good it is doesn't do much to assuage their fears. I understand your motivations here, and sympathize with you as a developer: but as a user, I couldn't justify integrating this into my workflow.