A private, self-hosted toolbox for everything PDF.
Stirling PDF is the obvious pick if you want to stop pasting sensitive documents into random online PDF tools and instead run everything privately on your own box. It is best for self-hosters, IT teams and developers; note the open-core split means the free version covers the everyday toolbox while enterprise features like SSO and auditing require a paid plan, and casual users who only occasionally touch a PDF may not want to run a server at all.
Facts & pricing last checked October 2026. How we review
Stirling-PDF is a self-hosted web app with dozens of PDF tools: merge, split, convert, OCR, sign, redact, and compress. Files are processed on your own server, so nothing is uploaded to a third party. Note: it uses an open-core license, so check the terms for paid features.
Stirling PDF is a self-hosted, browser-based toolbox of 50+ PDF utilities that runs on your own machine or server, so documents never have to be uploaded to an external website. From one dashboard you can merge and split PDFs, convert to and from other formats, compress, run OCR on scanned files, rotate and reorganize pages, add watermarks, and sign or redact documents. It also offers no-code pipelines to chain operations together and REST APIs for nearly every tool, so you can automate bulk processing or wire it into your own systems. It runs as a Docker container, a desktop client, or a Kubernetes deployment, with a UI available in 40+ languages. Stirling PDF is popular with privacy-conscious individuals, IT teams replacing a grab-bag of online PDF sites, and developers needing a private PDF-processing API. It follows an open-core model: the core platform is free and open source, while certain enterprise capabilities (such as SSO, auditing and other advanced features) sit in a paid tier.
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