Logo
Deploy Now

SaaS Alternative

Smallpdf iLovePDF PDF24 Adobe Acrobat

Categories

Self-Hosted Open Source Productivity Document Management File Conversion PDF Tools Office

Stars

87243

Forks

7796

Watchers

340

Developer links

Last Updated: 07-16-2026 11:54 AM (UTC)

StirlingPDF

Adobe Acrobat and Smallpdf, answered by a self-hosted Java web application: Stirling PDF processes every file with its 60+ tools on your own server and deletes it after the task completes. Nothing is uploaded to a third party, which is the whole point for contracts, invoices, and medical records. The toolbox covers page operations (merge, split at page numbers or scanned dividers, rotate, reorder, crop, extract), conversion in both directions between PDF and Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images, HTML, and Markdown, OCR that turns scans into searchable PDFs via Tesseract/OCRmyPDF (including PDF/A archival conversion), and security tools for passwords, permissions, watermarks, signatures, and true UI-driven text redaction. A built-in viewer handles annotation, drawing, and text or image insertion, and V2 added stateful processing - upload once, chain multiple tools - plus undo/redo history. For automation, nearly every tool has a REST API endpoint, no-code pipelines combine operations into custom logic chains, and watched folders process files automatically. Enterprise deployments get SSO, user management, and audit logging; the interface ships in 40+ languages. With 84K+ GitHub stars it is the most popular PDF tool in self-hosting, replacing $20/month Acrobat subscriptions with flat infrastructure cost.

StirlingPDF

Benefits

  • Documents Never Leave Your Server
  • Files are processed locally and deleted post-task - the privacy answer for contracts, financials, and medical records.
  • Cancel the Acrobat Subscription
  • The operations covered by $20/month Adobe plans - editing, OCR, conversion, signing - run at flat hosting cost with no per-file caps.
  • Automate Recurring PDF Work
  • REST endpoints for nearly every tool plus no-code pipelines and watched folders turn manual document chores into jobs.
  • One Tool Instead of Ten
  • Merging, OCR, redaction, compression, and format conversion in a single interface - no juggling free-tier web tools.

Features

  • 60+ PDF Tools
  • Merge, split, rotate, crop, extract, compress, repair, flatten, watermark, and page numbering.
  • OCR and PDF/A
  • Tesseract-powered text recognition makes scans searchable; archival PDF/A conversion included.
  • Bidirectional Conversion
  • PDF to and from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images, HTML, and Markdown.
  • Sign and Redact
  • Signature placement, password and permission management, and interactive UI-based text redaction.
  • Pipelines and API
  • No-code operation chains, watched-folder automation, and REST endpoints for almost every tool.
  • Stateful Editing
  • Upload once and chain tools with full undo/redo history in the V2 interface.