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Compare PDF websites and apps by task, cost and where your files are processed.

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What do you need to do with a PDF?

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View a PDF Compress a PDF Merge PDFs Edit a PDF Compare two PDFs Convert a PDF Extract PDF data Sign a PDF Make scans searchable Protect a PDF Make PDFs accessible

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155 tools to start with

Every tool from A to Z. Answering a question narrows it.

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All 155 tools

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How these tools are ordered

Alphabetically by name. The results are the full index underneath this finder with the tools that do not match your choices hidden, so what is left keeps the order it had. Nothing here is ranked, recommended or moved up.

A paid placement never affects this order, and there is nothing here for one to move: no tool is ranked above another. Where a record has a placement it is labelled as such on its row. How the site is paid for.

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ABBYY FineReader PDF pdf.abbyy.com

Paid desktop PDF editor and OCR suite strong on scanned documents.

Cost: From £84.00 a year
Platforms: Windows · macOS · iOS
Your files: Installed desktop application for Windows and macOS whose own help centre states recognition and processing run offline with documents stored locally. That statement covers the Windows program, not the Mac or iOS editions.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

AccessibilityNow crawfordtech.com

Enterprise platform that converts documents into accessible formats including PDF/UA and Braille.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Web · Self-hosted
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Adobe Acrobat adobe.com

Adobe's PDF toolkit: free browser tools plus the paid Acrobat Pro desktop app.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Acrobat desktop on Windows and macOS, and Acrobat Reader. On their servers: Acrobat online tools and Document Cloud services. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

Adobe PDF Accessibility Auto-Tag API developer.adobe.com

Cloud API that adds structure tags to PDFs at scale, as a first step towards accessibility.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Adobe PDF Extract API developer.adobe.com

Cloud API that extracts text, tables and structure from PDFs into JSON or Markdown.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Adobe PDF Library datalogics.com

Commercial PDF SDK built on Adobe's own engine, sold and supported by Datalogics.

Cost: From £4,489.17 a year
Platforms: Windows · Linux · macOS · Self-hosted
Your files: An embeddable SDK that runs inside the application you build, on your own servers, desktops or containers. Datalogics operates no processing service in that path; the same company sells pdfRest, a hosted API, which is a separate product.
Redaction: Not checked

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Why this matches

Adobe Scan adobe.com

Free phone scanner that turns paper into searchable PDFs in Adobe's cloud.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: iOS · Android
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Allyant PDF Validator allyant.com

Free Acrobat plug-in accessibility checker that tests a PDF against WCAG and PDF/UA and guides manual testing.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Windows
Your files: An Acrobat plug-in: the document is opened and checked inside your own copy of Acrobat, on your own machine. The form the vendor requires gates the download and collects contact details, not the document.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Amazon Textract aws.amazon.com

AWS API that reads text, forms, tables and signatures from uploaded documents.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Web · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Antenna House Formatter antennahouse.com

Commercial publishing formatter that lays out XSL-FO or CSS into print-quality PDF.

Cost: From £299.33 one-off
Platforms: Windows · Linux · macOS · Self-hosted
Your files: Installed software on Windows, Linux or macOS, or the vendor's Docker image in your own container. Antenna House operates no document processing service in that path.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Apache FOP xmlgraphics.apache.org

Java XSL-FO formatter that turns XML formatting objects into PDF and print output.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A Java application you run yourself. The formatting objects are read from your own filesystem and the output is written there; the Apache Software Foundation operates no processing service at all.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Apache PDFBox pdfbox.apache.org

Long-standing Apache Java library and CLI suite for creating and manipulating PDFs.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: A Java class library plus local Java applications. Parsing, rendering, encryption and signing all run in the local JVM.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Apache Tika tika.apache.org

Java toolkit that detects and extracts text and metadata from over a thousand file formats through one interface.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Linux · Windows · macOS · Self-hosted
Your files: A Java library, a command-line application and a server that you run yourself. There is no Apache-hosted document processing service, so a file parsed with Tika stays on your infrastructure. Note that 4.x can be configured to call vision-language-model APIs and remote OCR services; those are operator choices, not defaults, and they belong to the configuration rather than to the product.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Apple Preview support.apple.com

The macOS PDF viewer and markup editor that ships with every Mac.

Cost: Free
Platforms: macOS · iOS
Your files: A local Apple application that opens files on the device. No account, no upload step, and no vendor service in the path.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

Apryse apryse.com

Commercial PDF SDK best known for WebViewer, its in-browser document SDK.

Cost: From £1,112.55 a year
Platforms: Web · Linux · iOS · Android · API · Self-hosted
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Apryse SDK linked into an application, and the configured client-side WebViewer. On their servers: Server-backed viewers, hosted products and any configured service. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

Aspose.PDF products.aspose.com

Commercial PDF library and API for .NET, Java, C++ and Python, sold under a perpetual per-developer licence.

Cost: From £889.30 one-off
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted
Your files: An in-process library distributed as NuGet, Maven and pip packages, with no vendor service involved in processing. A hosted REST API exists as a separate cloud product and is not what this record describes.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

AvePDF avepdf.com

Free browser PDF toolkit, operated by the company behind the Nutrient SDK.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

axesCheck check.axes4.com

Free browser-based PDF/UA and WCAG accessibility checker that needs no installation.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Web
Your files: We observed a file upload to check.axes4.com.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

axesPDF axes4.com

Windows desktop accessibility checker and fixer for tagged PDFs, with PDF/UA machine checks and one-click repairs.

Cost: From £482.11 a year
Platforms: Windows
Your files: An installed Windows desktop application. The vendor states its AI-assisted checks run exclusively locally and access no cloud service or internet connection.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Azure AI Document Intelligence learn.microsoft.com

Microsoft's cloud OCR and document extraction API, with an on-premises container option.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · API · Self-hosted · Linux
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Bluebeam Revu bluebeam.com

Construction-focused PDF markup and takeoff suite with genuine redaction, though the vendor's own sources disagree on which plans include it.

Cost: From £264.00 a year
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · iOS · Android
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Revu on Windows. On their servers: Studio, cloud collaboration and browser or mobile companion access. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

borb borbpdf.com

Dual-licensed pure-Python library for creating and manipulating PDFs, with an automatic page-layout engine and no non-Python dependencies.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: A Python library that processes files inside the calling process, so documents stay local. One nuance belongs with that verdict: borb sends usage telemetry by default - read and write events posted to a vendor endpoint, with a pseudonymous identifier derived from the connection IP, queued in memory until exit. No document content, metadata or filenames are sent, and it is opt-out rather than opt-in. This is the first record in the index where a locally installed library is network-active by default.
Redaction: Not checked

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Why this matches

Camelot camelot-py.readthedocs.io

Python library dedicated to pulling tables out of PDFs, with a parser chosen per document and pandas DataFrames as the output.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: A Python library that reads a file from disk and returns tables. No hosted service exists to send anything to.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

CamScanner camscanner.com

Mobile document scanner with OCR, PDF conversion and cloud sync.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · iOS · Android · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Chunkr chunkr.ai

Document parsing and extraction service, run from their cloud or self-hosted from the open-source release.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: API · Self-hosted
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: The AGPL release. On their servers: The managed API. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

CommonLook Office allyant.com

Windows add-in that generates accessible PDFs from Word and PowerPoint and walks the author through the checkpoints.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Windows
Your files: Windows add-in for Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. The document is authored and tagged on the workstation through Office's own interface, so there is no service for the file to be sent to. Installation activates a product key over the internet, but that is licensing rather than document processing.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

CommonLook PDF allyant.com

AI-assisted PDF accessibility remediation in the browser or as an Acrobat plug-in, with PDF/UA, WCAG and HHS validation.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: The Acrobat plug-in, Windows, The Acrobat plug-in, macOS. On their servers: The web edition. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

DocHub dochub.com

Browser PDF editor and e-signature tool wired into Google Drive and Gmail.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · iOS · Android
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: Covers, not removes

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Why this matches

Docling docling-project.github.io

IBM-started open-source library that turns PDFs and office documents into structured Markdown, HTML or JSON with layout, table and reading-order models.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted
Your files: An in-process Python library and CLI with no hosted component and no account. One exception, recorded in the note: the optional VLM picture-description path and the convert-remote command can be pointed at a server, so page images leave only if the operator configures it that way.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

DocRaptor docraptor.com

Hosted HTML-to-PDF API built on the Prince engine, with CSS Paged Media and tagged accessible output.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: API
Your files: We observed a file upload to api.docraptor.com.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Documenso documenso.com

Open-source e-signature platform you can self-host or use as a hosted cloud.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Web · API · Self-hosted
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Self-hosted Community/Business/Enterprise. On their servers: Hosted web application, Hosted REST API. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

DocuSeal docuseal.com

Open-source document signing and fillable PDF forms, self-hosted or cloud.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Web · API · Self-hosted
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

DocuSign docusign.com

Cloud e-signature and agreement management, with audit trails.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

dompdf dompdf.github.io

PHP HTML-to-PDF renderer with its own CSS 2.1 layout engine and no browser to install.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A PHP library running in your own process. No service and no account; it will fetch external stylesheets and images over http or ftp when a template asks, which is the application's own configuration rather than a vendor service.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Dropbox Sign sign.dropbox.com

Hosted e-signature for sending, signing and tracking agreements.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Equidox equidox.co

Cloud PDF remediation service: upload a document, tag it in a browser with automated detectors, export accessible PDF, HTML or ePub.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: We observed a file upload to app.equidox.co.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Foxit PDF Editor foxit.com

Commercial PDF editor with OCR, genuine redaction and eSign.

Cost: From £8.15 a month
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Web · iOS · Android · API
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Foxit PDF Editor installed on Windows and macOS. On their servers: Local AI on the user’s hardware, Smart Redact in the vendor cloud and other AI services. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

Foxit PDF SDK developers.foxit.com

Commercial PDF library for embedding rendering, editing, signing and redaction in your own application.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · iOS · Android · Web · Self-hosted
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Foxit PDF SDK linked into an application on a device or customer server. On their servers: Licence validation where enabled, plus web and mobile editions. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

fpdf2 github.com

Pure-Python PDF creation library with Unicode font embedding, successor to PyFPDF.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A Python package running in your own interpreter. No service, no account, and no network calls of its own.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

FPDI setasign.com

PHP library that imports pages from existing PDFs into FPDF, mPDF, TCPDF and tFPDF templates.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A pure-PHP component you require inside your own application. No service and no account; the source PDF and the generated one never leave your infrastructure.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Genius Scan thegrizzlylabs.com

On-device mobile scanner with OCR, PDF creation and optional cloud sync.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · iOS · Android
Your files: Claimed by the vendor. Not yet independently verified.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Ghostscript ghostscript.com

PostScript and PDF interpreter and SDK for converting, rasterising and compressing.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted
Your files: Installed interpreter and embeddable SDK. It runs wherever you put it, including your own servers, but Artifex never sees the documents.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

gImageReader github.com

Desktop GUI that runs the Tesseract OCR engine over images and PDFs.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · Linux
Your files: Installed desktop application linking against a locally installed Tesseract. No service, no upload, no account.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Goodnotes goodnotes.com

Tablet-first note-taking and PDF annotation with sync, collaboration and AI.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: iOS · Android · Windows · macOS · Web
Your files: Claimed by the vendor. Not yet independently verified.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Google Chrome built-in PDF viewer support.google.com

Chrome's PDF viewer, which OCRs scanned PDFs automatically on your device.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · Linux · Android
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Chrome on Windows, macOS and Linux, Chrome on Android. On their servers: Saving to Drive, and the Android edit action. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Google Cloud Vision API and Document AI cloud.google.com

Google's cloud OCR: Vision for text in images, Document AI for structured extraction.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Gotenberg gotenberg.dev

Self-hosted Docker API for document-to-PDF conversion and PDF manipulation.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Linux · API · Self-hosted
Your files: This runs on a server you operate rather than on your own device: The container, on Linux, A self-hosted instance, The HTTP API it exposes. Documents do not reach a server the vendor runs, and they do not stay in your browser either.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

GROBID github.com

Machine-learning extraction of scholarly PDFs into structured XML/TEI for citation and metadata mining.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted · Linux · Windows · macOS
Your files: Claimed by the vendor. Not yet independently verified.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

GroupDocs groupdocs.com

Document SDK family for .NET, Java, Node.js and Python, from the company behind Aspose.

Cost: From £897.24 one-off
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: Libraries that run inside your own application on .NET, Java, Node.js or Python. GroupDocs operates no document processing service, so documents are opened and written on your own infrastructure.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

ICEpdf icepdf.org

Open-source Java PDF engine for rendering, converting, extracting and signing.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A Java library and viewer running in your own JVM or servlet container. ICEsoft operates no document processing service in that path.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

iLovePDF ilovepdf.com

Broad web PDF toolkit with desktop, mobile and API companions.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · iOS · Android · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: Covers, not removes

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Why this matches

IronPDF ironpdf.com

Commercial in-process PDF library for .NET, Java, Python and Node.js, priced in perpetual per-developer tiers.

Cost: From £740.96 one-off
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: An in-process .NET library. The vendor states documents are not sent to Iron Software and everything runs locally; the only network calls described are licence validation and the optional URL-to-PDF render.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

iText itextpdf.com

Java and .NET PDF library with an AGPL-3.0 core and component-specific licensing.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: An in-process Java and .NET library. There is no hosted component and no vendor service in the path, so documents are parsed and written inside the calling application.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

JPedal idrsolutions.com

Pure Java PDF library for rendering, extraction, viewing and manipulation, with published prices.

Cost: From £710.90 one-off
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A Java library that runs in your own JVM, on-premise or in your own cloud. IDRsolutions operates no document processing service; the vendor's own framing is that it runs in the same JVM with no native process bridge.
Redaction: Not checked

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Why this matches

jpgtopdf jpgtopdfmobile.com

A JPG to PDF converter that builds the PDF in your browser and never uploads your images.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · Linux · iOS · Android
Your files: We supplied a marked PNG on 21 October 2026 and no file left the device. Our check confirmed the tool actually ran: The page reported the PDF ready, so the conversion ran.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

jsPDF github.com

Client-side JavaScript library that generates PDFs in the browser or in Node.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Web · Self-hosted
Your files: A JavaScript library that runs in the browser or in your own Node process and writes bytes to a download or a file, so generating a PDF needs no vendor-hosted rendering service. That is not the same as an empty network, and the difference is worth stating: its browser file-loading module performs XMLHttpRequest GET requests for resources the caller names, such as an image or a font it has been asked to embed. Loading a resource is not uploading a document, and neither proves the other. What holds is that nothing about the document leaves the device unless the application using the library sends it somewhere.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

LEADTOOLS PDF SDK leadtools.com

Commercial PDF SDK for .NET, C++ and mobile targets, with OCR, forms, conversion and automatic redaction alongside the PDF API.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Windows · Linux · macOS · Android · iOS · Web · Self-hosted
Your files: A commercial SDK compiled into the application you build. The PDF library and the Document Analyzer component that drives automatic redaction both run in your own process on your own infrastructure; LEADTOOLS operates no processing service in that path and there is no account.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

Level Access levelaccess.com

Digital accessibility platform covering documents as well as web, mobile and software.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Web
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

LibreOffice Draw libreoffice.org

Free office drawing app that opens PDFs for light editing and re-export.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: Installed desktop application. It opens and saves files on local storage with no vendor service involved.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

LlamaParse llamaindex.ai

Hosted parsing API that turns complex documents into Markdown, text or JSON for AI pipelines.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Marker github.com

PDF-to-Markdown converter built around a vision-language model, published by Datalab as an open-source tool with a hosted API and managed platform.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted
Your files: Two products share the name, and four distinct paths sit inside the first. The open-source package runs on your own machine, but it is not offline out of the box: model weights download on first use, and the GPU path spawns a vLLM inference server inside Docker with the CPU and Apple Silicon path needing the llama.cpp server binary. The optional --use_llm workflow is the one whose destination varies, and it depends on the service chosen: Gemini is the documented default, and the README also lists a local Ollama and configurable OpenAI-compatible endpoints, so it does not follow that every invocation uploads to somebody else's model. The Datalab hosted API is the second product and is a service in the ordinary sense.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Master PDF Editor code-industry.net

Desktop PDF editor for editing, converting and signing, with vendor-documented redaction and a demo watermark.

Cost: From £59.30 one-off
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Master PDF Editor on the desktop. On their servers: Activation and update checks. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

Microsoft Edge PDF reader learn.microsoft.com

PDF reader built into Edge, with inking, highlighting, text notes and read aloud.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Edge on Windows, Edge on macOS. On their servers: Viewing Purview-protected files. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Microsoft Lens support.microsoft.com

Retired Microsoft mobile scanner, replaced by the scanner in OneDrive.

Cost: Free
Platforms: iOS · Android
Your files: We have not yet tested this tool.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Microsoft OneDrive document scanning support.microsoft.com

Phone scanning to PDF in OneDrive, Microsoft's official Lens replacement.

Cost: Free
Platforms: iOS · Android
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Mindee mindee.com

Cloud document AI API (V2) that turns uploaded documents into structured JSON, with a separate raw-text OCR model.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

mPDF mpdf.github.io

PHP library that generates PDFs from UTF-8 HTML, and whose manual calls it dated.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A PHP library running in your own web server's process. No service, no account, no network call - the HTML and the data behind it stay on your infrastructure.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

MuPDF (mutool) mupdf.com

Fast C PDF library plus the mutool command-line suite.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted
Your files: Installed command-line binary and embeddable C library. Documents are read and written on the machine running it.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

MuPDF.js mupdfjs.readthedocs.io

Artifex's WebAssembly build of the MuPDF engine for JavaScript and browsers.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Web · Self-hosted
Your files: The MuPDF C engine compiled to WebAssembly and shipped inside the package, so parsing, rendering and editing happen in your own browser or Node process.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

Nitro PDF Pro gonitro.com

Commercial PDF editor and eSign suite for Windows, Mac and iOS.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · iOS
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Nitro PDF Pro installed on Windows and macOS. On their servers: Smart Tools online services. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

No Fuss PDF nofusspdf.com

Fill, sign, merge and convert PDFs without the file leaving your device.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Web
Your files: We supplied a test PDF on 21 October 2026 and no file left the device. Our check confirmed the tool actually ran: The tool produced a file for download (probe-filled.pdf), so it demonstrably ran.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Notability notability.com

Handwriting-first note app with PDF annotation, linked audio and AI study tools.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: iOS · Android · macOS · Windows · Web
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: iOS, macOS. On their servers: Web. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Nougat github.com

Meta Platforms' academic PDF parser that reads LaTeX maths and tables into Markdown.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A Python package and a model that run on your own hardware. The optional API mode is a local server on 127.0.0.1, so even that path keeps documents on the machine; the only fetch is the model weights.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Nutrient nutrient.io

Commercial PDF SDK with a client-side web SDK and self-hosted document engine.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Web · macOS · iOS · Android · API · Self-hosted · Windows · Linux
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Nutrient Web SDK running client side, Self-hosted Document Engine and server SDKs. On their servers: Document Engine, hosted APIs and online licence validation. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

OCRmyPDF ocrmypdf.readthedocs.io

Command-line tool and Python library that adds a searchable OCR text layer to scanned PDFs.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: Command-line tool and Python library, usually run on your own machine or in your own container. No vendor service in the path.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Okular okular.kde.org

KDE's free multi-format document viewer for PDF, EPub, comics and images.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Linux · Windows · macOS
Your files: An installed desktop application with no service component. Documents are opened, rendered, annotated and saved on the local machine.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

OpenDocScan opendocscan.com

A document scanner in the browser: photograph a page, straighten it, read the text and build a searchable PDF.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Web
Your files: We supplied a marked PNG on 21 October 2026 and no file left the device. Our check confirmed the tool actually ran: The page counted the imported image as a page, so the scanner took the file in.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

OpenSign opensignlabs.com

Open-source e-signature you can self-host, or use free in their cloud.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · API · Self-hosted
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: The Docker deployment. On their servers: The free hosted version, The hosted API. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PAC pac.pdf-accessibility.org

Free Windows accessibility checker for PDF/UA and WCAG, with local AI-assisted semantic checks.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Windows
Your files: An installed Windows application that the vendor states operates completely offline, sends nothing to the internet or to axes4 servers, and has no licensing system to check in with. Its 2026 AI checks run on a model shipped inside the application, and the vendor explicitly declined to offer alt-text checking because that would have required a server-side model. Strongest documentary locality claim in the accessibility group.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PandaDoc pandadoc.com

Hosted platform for building, sending and e-signing proposals and contracts.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · iOS · Android · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PDF Architect pdfforge.org

Modular Windows PDF editor from the PDFCreator team, with real redaction.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: PDF Architect on the desktop. On their servers: Account activation and e-signature workflows. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

PDF Arranger github.com

Free GPL-licensed desktop app for merging, splitting, rearranging and adjusting PDF pages visually.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: Desktop application. It reads and writes local files through a graphical window; no server is involved.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PDF Candy pdfcandy.com

Browser PDF toolkit with 90+ tools, plus an offline Windows desktop app.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Windows. On their servers: Web. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Covers, not removes

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Why this matches

PDF Compare logrunlab.com

Compare the text of two PDFs in the browser and see exactly what changed.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Web
Your files: We supplied a test PDF on 21 October 2026 and no file left the device. Our check confirmed the tool actually ran: A comparison result was reported, so the tool processed both documents.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PDF Expert pdfexpert.com

Readdle's PDF editor and reader for Mac, iPad and iPhone.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: macOS · iOS
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: PDF Expert on Mac and iOS. On their servers: Conversion, AI and cloud sync features. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

PDF Studio xodo.com

Cross-platform PDF editor for Windows, Mac and Linux, sold as Xodo PDF Studio.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: Installed desktop application for Windows, macOS and Linux. The vendor also sells adjacent server and online products, but the editor itself runs locally.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

pdf-lib pdf-lib.js.org

JavaScript library for creating PDFs and filling forms, pages and metadata.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Web · Self-hosted
Your files: A pure JavaScript library operating on in-memory byte arrays in your own runtime. No vendor service and no runtime downloads, so it can be fully air-gapped.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

pdf-redactor github.com

Python library that redacts a PDF's text layer, links and metadata by regex.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: Python module and script that must be installed and run on your own machine. The project publishes no hosted service, so there is no server in the path.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

PDF-XChange Core API SDK pdf-xchange.com

Windows SDK for creating and manipulating PDFs, now sold only to approved developers on application.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Windows
Your files: A compiled library embedded in the application you build, licensed by licence strings compiled in at release time. There is no vendor service in the path and no account: Tracker Software operates no processing endpoint in that path.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PDF-XChange Editor pdf-xchange.com

Windows-only PDF editor with a large free tier and perpetual licences.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: PDF-XChange Editor on Windows. On their servers: Optional AI providers. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Not checked

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Why this matches

PDF.js mozilla.github.io

Mozilla's JavaScript library for parsing and rendering PDFs in the browser.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Web · Self-hosted
Your files: A JavaScript library that parses and renders from bytes you supply, in the page or in Node. No Mozilla service is involved.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PDF24 pdf24.org

Free ad-funded PDF toolkit online, plus a free offline Windows Creator app.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Web · Windows
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: PDF24 Creator for Windows. On their servers: The online tools. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

PDF2Go pdf2go.com

German browser PDF toolkit for converting, compressing, OCR and redaction.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Windows, macOS, Linux. On their servers: Web. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

pdfaPilot callassoftware.com

PDF/A and PDF/UA conversion, validation and correction for archiving and accessibility.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: Installed desktop, server and command-line software for PDF/A and PDF/UA conversion and validation. The file is read and written on your own infrastructure; callas software operates no processing service in the path.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

pdfcpu pdfcpu.io

Apache-2.0 Go PDF library and CLI for validation, assembly, extraction and encryption.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: A compiled Go library and CLI that runs in-process on the caller's machine, with no service component.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PDFescape pdfescape.com

Long-running free browser PDF editor and form filler, with paid desktop tiers.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Windows. On their servers: Web. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Not checked

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Why this matches

PDFgear pdfgear.com

Free cross-platform PDF editor, converter and signer with an AI copilot.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Windows · macOS · iOS · Android · Web
Your files: Claimed by the vendor. Not yet independently verified.
Redaction: Not checked

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Why this matches

pdfGoHTML callassoftware.com

Free Acrobat plug-in that renders a tagged PDF as structured HTML, so a person can judge its accessibility and tagging.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Windows · macOS
Your files: An Acrobat plug-in: the PDF is opened and converted to HTML inside your own copy of Acrobat, on your own machine. The account the vendor requires gates the download, not the processing.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PDFium pdfium.googlesource.com

Google's BSD-licensed C++ PDF rendering engine, embedded in Chrome.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Android
Your files: An in-process C++ rendering engine with no service component, so documents are parsed and rendered inside the host process.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PDFix pdfix.net

On-premises PDF accessibility desktop app and SDK: PDF/UA and WCAG validation, auto-tagging and remediation.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: A desktop application and an embeddable SDK, documented as fully on-premises with no document data sent to PDFix servers or any cloud service. One caveat that belongs with the verdict: two optional AI actions in the vendor's own marketplace do send page images to Amazon Textract and content to OpenAI, so the no-upload position is true of the core product and false for those specific actions.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

PDFlib pdflib.com

Long-standing commercial library for generating PDFs, with page-import and personalisation tiers.

Cost: From £740.00 one-off
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: A commercial library for generating PDFs, linked into your own application. It runs in your process and writes to your own storage; PDFlib operates no processing service to upload to.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

pdfminer.six pdfminersix.readthedocs.io

Pure-Python library for pulling text, images and structure out of a PDF, with a command-line tool.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Linux · Windows · macOS · Self-hosted
Your files: A pure-Python library and its pdf2txt.py command line. It runs in your own interpreter with no service, no account and no network call in the package.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

pdfplumber github.com

Python library that exposes every character, line and rectangle in a PDF, with text and table extraction built on top of that.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: A pure-Python library that parses bytes already in memory. There is no vendor service and no network component at all.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

pdfRest pdfrest.com

REST API for PDF processing built on Adobe PDF Library, with a self-hosted option.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: API · Self-hosted
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Self-hosted. On their servers: API. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

PDFsam pdfsam.org

Desktop PDF split and merge apps - Basic is free and open source, others paid.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: Desktop applications for Windows, macOS and Linux. There is no web service to upload to.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

PDFsharp docs.pdfsharp.net

AGPL or commercial .NET library for creating PDFs with GDI+-style drawing and modifying, merging and splitting existing ones.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: A .NET library compiled into the calling application. It has no server component and no vendor endpoint.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PDFShift pdfshift.io

Hosted HTML-to-PDF API running headless Chromium behind a single REST endpoint.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: API
Your files: We observed a file upload to api.pdfshift.io.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

pdftk-java gitlab.com

Java port of pdftk for scripted merging, splitting, form filling and encryption.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: Local command-line program that reads and writes files on the invoking machine. No account and no service.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

pdfToolbox callassoftware.com

Commercial PDF preflight, correction and standards validation, including PDF/UA checks.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: pdfToolbox Desktop (standalone or Adobe Acrobat Pro plug-in), pdfToolbox Server, CLI and SDK (customer-managed). On their servers: pdfToolbox in the Cloud / OEM API. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Pdftools PDF Viewer SDK pdf-tools.com

Client-side PDF viewer SDK for web and mobile, with true redaction built in.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Web · iOS · Android · Self-hosted
Your files: A client-side SDK: it renders, annotates and redacts inside the browser or the mobile app, which is the vendor's whole pitch - "directly on the client without a server-side PDF library". No Pdftools service is in the path.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

Pdftools SDK pdf-tools.com

Commercial SDK for PDF/A conversion, validation, compression and signing at volume.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Windows · Linux · macOS · Self-hosted
Your files: An SDK that runs inside your own application. The vendor's own wording is "deploy on-premise, in the cloud, or hybrid", where cloud means the customer's cloud rather than theirs. The same company also sells a separate Conversion Service, and the documentation offers that for self-hosted, on-premises and cloud deployment on Windows, Linux and Docker, so it is not a vendor-hosted-only product: a REST API is an interface rather than evidence that the vendor processes the files.
Redaction: Not checked

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Why this matches

pikepdf pikepdf.readthedocs.io

Python wrapper around qpdf for reading, repairing and structurally editing PDFs.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: An in-process Python extension that compiles qpdf into the wheel. There is no hosted component at all.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Poppler poppler.freedesktop.org

GPL PDF rendering library and command-line utilities used across Linux desktops.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Linux · Windows · macOS · Android
Your files: A library plus command-line binaries that run in your own process or shell, with no service component of any kind.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Power PDF tungstenautomation.com

Office-style PDF editor where genuine redaction needs the Advanced tier.

Cost: From £95.00 one-off
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · iOS · Android
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Power PDF Standard, Advanced and Mac editions, iOS and Android mobile apps. On their servers: Business cloud editor, Teams and configured AI services. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Not checked

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Why this matches

PREP continualengine.com

Continual Engine's cloud remediation platform for accessible PDFs and documents, with AI tagging, OCR and REST APIs.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Web · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Prince princexml.com

Installed HTML and CSS typesetting engine that produces print-quality PDF, books included.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: A program you install and run yourself. It reads HTML and CSS from local storage or a URL you choose and writes the PDF locally; YesLogic operates no processing service in the path.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

PrizmDoc accusoft.com

Accusoft's document viewing and processing APIs, with permanent redaction and AI-assisted PII detection, self-hosted or hosted.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: API · Self-hosted · Web · Windows · Linux
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: PrizmDoc Server deployed by the customer. On their servers: PrizmDoc Cloud hosted by the vendor. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

PyMuPDF pymupdf.readthedocs.io

Fast Python document library built on MuPDF, with genuine destructive redaction.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: A native Python extension linking the MuPDF C engine, so parsing, rendering and redaction all run in the calling process. Its README states there are no telemetry calls and no cloud dependencies.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

pypdf github.com

Pure-Python library for splitting, merging, transforming and reading PDF documents.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted · Linux · Windows · macOS
Your files: A pure-Python library with no service component. It reads and writes files in the caller's own process, so there is no server in the path and nothing for a probe to observe.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Qoppa Java PDF SDK qoppa.com

Java PDF library suite that is no longer sold: its functionality moved to Apryse Java PDF.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Self-hosted · Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: Java libraries embedded in your own application and running on your own JVM. Qoppa operates no processing service. The suite is unsold rather than switched off, so an existing deployment is unaffected.
Redaction: Not checked

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Why this matches

qpdf qpdf.readthedocs.io

Apache-2.0 C++ library and command-line tool for structural PDF transformations.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: Command-line tool and library. It reads and writes local files; there is no service involved.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Reducto reducto.ai

Hosted document parsing and extraction API, priced per page, for AI pipelines.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: API · Self-hosted
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Enterprise VPC/on-premises deployment. On their servers: Hosted API. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

ReportLab reportlab.com

Python library for generating PDFs from code, from a low-level drawing canvas up to a page-layout engine, under a BSD licence.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: A Python library that writes PDFs inside the calling process. The open-source toolkit makes no network calls at all; the separate proprietary PLUS product is a different thing and is not what this record describes.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

RoboBraille robobraille.org

Free email and web service that converts documents into accessible formats: Braille, audio, e-books and tagged PDF.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web
Your files: We observed a file upload to robobraille.org.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Scanbot SDK scanbot.io

Commercial on-device SDK for mobile scanning, barcodes and data capture.

Cost: From £1,854.25 a year
Platforms: Android · iOS · Web · Windows · Linux
Your files: This runs on a server you operate rather than on your own device: Windows Server, Linux. Documents do not reach a server the vendor runs, and they do not stay in your browser either.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Scanner Pro readdle.com

iPhone and iPad scanner with on-device OCR, PDF merging, signing and faxing.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: iOS
Your files: Claimed by the vendor. Not yet independently verified.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Sejda sejda.com

Browser and desktop PDF editor with 30+ tools and a limited free tier.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Sejda Desktop for Windows, Sejda Desktop for macOS, Sejda Desktop for Linux. On their servers: The web service. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Covers, not removes

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Why this matches

SensusAccess sensusaccess.com

Self-service conversion of documents into accessible formats, and remediation of inaccessible PDFs.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Web
Your files: We observed a file upload to sensusaccess.com.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

SetaPDF-Core setasign.com

Commercial PHP library giving low-level access to PDF objects, metadata and encryption.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A pure-PHP library running in your own process. No service and no account; documents are read and written on your own infrastructure.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

SignNow signnow.com

Cloud e-signature platform for sending, signing and tracking documents.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Web · iOS · Android · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

SignWell signwell.com

Straightforward e-signature service with a free tier, REST API and CLI.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · API
Your files: The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

SimplePDF simplepdf.com

Browser PDF editor and form filler that processes files in your browser.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · API
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Free browser editor. On their servers: Paid dashboard and submission workflows, API (Premium). A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Smallpdf smallpdf.com

Browser PDF toolkit with 30+ tools and a Pro subscription, built in Switzerland.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · iOS · Android
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Windows. On their servers: Web. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

SnackPDF snackpdf.com

Your PDFs stay on your device.

Cost: Free
Platforms: Web
Your files: We supplied a test PDF on 20 October 2026 and no file left the device. Our check confirmed the tool actually ran: A download control appeared after processing, so the tool did run. A later check on 21 October 2026 could not confirm the tool had run, so that reading is not counted here.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

Soda PDF sodapdf.com

Subscription PDF suite with a Windows app, a browser edition and online AI tools.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Windows desktop. On their servers: Web. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

Solid Framework soliddocuments.com

PDF-to-Office conversion SDK that is no longer sold separately: its technology moved into the Apryse SDK.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A discontinued embedded SDK and a set of installed desktop applications. The conversion ran in the customer's own environment, and the page that remains describes a legacy download portal rather than a hosted service. Where the successor capability inside the Apryse SDK processes documents is a question for that record, not this one.
Redaction: Not checked

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Why this matches

Spire.PDF e-iceblue.com

Commercial .NET and Java PDF library whose free edition stops at ten pages.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows · Linux · macOS · Self-hosted
Your files: Libraries that run inside your own .NET or Java application. E-iceblue operates no processing service in that path, though the same brand sells Spire.Cloud, which is a separate product.
Redaction: No feature

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Why this matches

Stirling PDF stirling.com

Open-source PDF suite you can self-host, run as a desktop app, or use via API.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted
Your files: We ran the self-hosted edition ourselves and supplied a test PDF on 22 September 2026. A file was sent to localhost:8080 - a server on our own machine, not the vendor's - and to no other host. That is a statement about the self-hosted edition we tested. It is not a statement about the vendor's hosted service, which is a different product on different infrastructure.
Redaction: Removes content

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Why this matches

SumatraPDF sumatrapdfreader.org

Free, open-source, lightweight PDF and ebook reader for Windows.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows
Your files: A local Windows application with no cloud service. One caveat worth keeping: the pre-release AI chat sidebar hands document context to a third-party agent tool, though not to SumatraPDF servers.
Redaction: Not checked

Visit SumatraPDF Read the full record

Why this matches

Surya github.com

Open document OCR and layout model that returns text, reading order and tables as structured output.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Linux · Windows · macOS · Self-hosted
Your files: An OCR and layout model that runs on your own hardware. It does need an inference backend - vLLM or llama.cpp - which it starts as a local process, and the documentation allows pointing it at a server elsewhere through an environment variable, but no vendor service receives the document by default.
Redaction: No feature

Visit Surya Read the full record

Why this matches

SwiftScan swiftscan.app

Phone scanner for documents and QR codes, with OCR, signing and fax.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: iOS · Android
Your files: Claimed by the vendor. Not yet independently verified.
Redaction: Not checked

Visit SwiftScan Read the full record

Why this matches

Syncfusion PDF syncfusion.com

The PDF library inside Essential Studio, sold as part of the Document SDK rather than on its own.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted · Web
Your files: An in-process .NET library running on the customer's own servers, with no server deployment fee. Worth keeping in the note: the vendor also publishes free browser PDF tools that do upload, and they are a separate product from this library.
Redaction: Removes content

Visit Syncfusion PDF Read the full record

Why this matches

Tabula tabula.technology

Local desktop and command-line table extraction from text-based PDFs, output to CSV, TSV or JSON.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: The desktop application is a local service that reads and writes files on the machine. Two outbound calls exist and neither carries a document - a GitHub version check and a statistics ping, both disableable by flag.
Redaction: No feature

Visit Tabula Read the full record

Why this matches

tc-lib-pdf tcpdf.org

PHP PDF library built from focused packages, the successor to the deprecated TCPDF.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: PHP packages running in your own process. The project's own framing is that everything runs in PHP with nothing to keep alive next to your application.
Redaction: No feature

Visit tc-lib-pdf Read the full record

Why this matches

Telerik Document Processing Libraries telerik.com

Progress's .NET libraries for creating, editing and converting PDF, Word and Excel files with no Office, Acrobat or UI dependency.

Cost: Paid
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: A set of .NET libraries compiled into the application you build. The vendor makes the point explicitly - no Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat installation is required and the libraries are UI-independent - so there is no vendor service and no document ever leaves the process it runs in.
Redaction: No feature

Visit Telerik Document Processing Libraries Read the full record

Why this matches

Tesseract OCR tesseract-ocr.github.io

Open-source OCR engine and command-line tool, with no graphical interface.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: Command-line program and embedded library. There is no vendor service anywhere in the path.
Redaction: No feature

Visit Tesseract OCR Read the full record

Why this matches

Tesseract.js tesseract.projectnaptha.com

WebAssembly port of the Tesseract OCR engine for browsers and Node.js.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Web · Self-hosted
Your files: A JavaScript library that runs the OCR engine as a WebAssembly module inside your own browser or Node process. No vendor service receives the image. Note it fetches language data from a CDN by default, so not every byte is local.
Redaction: No feature

Visit Tesseract.js Read the full record

Why this matches

Unstructured github.com

Open-source partitioning of PDFs and other documents into structured elements for LLM pipelines.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Self-hosted · Linux · Windows · macOS
Your files: Claimed by the vendor. Not yet independently verified.
Redaction: No feature

Visit Unstructured Read the full record

Why this matches

veraPDF verapdf.org

Industry-backed open source accessibility validator for PDF/A and PDF/UA conformance.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Your files: A Java application installed locally, also available as a container image. No hosted validation service is involved, which is what makes it usable on restricted preservation networks.
Redaction: No feature

Visit veraPDF Read the full record

Why this matches

Vivliostyle vivliostyle.org

Open-source CSS typesetting project that turns HTML into print-quality PDF, in a browser or a CLI.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Web · Self-hosted
Your files: The viewer runs in the browser and the CLI and core engine run on your own machine or inside your own application. No Vivliostyle service is in the path for either, though the alpha hosted editor is a separate product.
Redaction: No feature

Visit Vivliostyle Read the full record

Why this matches

WeasyPrint weasyprint.org

Open-source Python library that turns HTML and CSS into PDF documents.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Self-hosted
Your files: A Python package and its command line, running in your own process. There is no service and no account, so templates and data never leave the machine generating the document.
Redaction: No feature

Visit WeasyPrint Read the full record

Why this matches

Wondershare PDFelement pdf.wondershare.com

Cross-platform PDF editor with OCR, Smart Redact and AI tools.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · iOS · Android
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Windows, macOS. On their servers: Web. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

Visit Wondershare PDFelement Read the full record

Why this matches

Xodo xodo.com

Apryse's cross-platform PDF suite: browser tools, a desktop editor and mobile apps.

Cost: Free + paid
Platforms: Web · Windows · macOS · Linux · iOS · Android
Your files: The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: Xodo PDF Studio on Windows, macOS and Linux. On their servers: Xodo Web tools that require an upload. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Redaction: Removes content

Visit Xodo Read the full record

Why this matches

Xournal++ xournalpp.github.io

Open-source handwriting app for annotating PDFs with a stylus on desktop.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Windows · macOS · Linux
Your files: A local desktop application with no server or account. PDFs are used as a journal background and the result is exported locally.
Redaction: No feature

Visit Xournal++ Read the full record

Why this matches

zathura pwmt.org

Keyboard-driven, plugin-based document viewer for Linux, with PDF handled by poppler or MuPDF.

Cost: Open source
Platforms: Linux
Your files: An installed local viewer. Documents are opened from the filesystem and rendered on the machine by whichever format plugin is installed, with no vendor service and no account, and no document upload or telemetry described in the project material. One outbound action is documented: links in a document open in an external browser, which sends nothing about the document but is outbound all the same, so this describes local document viewing rather than guaranteeing no outbound interaction.
Redaction: No feature

Visit zathura Read the full record

Why this matches

Browse all PDF tools

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ABBYY FineReader PDF

pdf.abbyy.com

Paid desktop PDF editor and OCR suite strong on scanned documents.

Cost:

From £84.00 a year

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · iOS

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdf.abbyy.com
AccessibilityNow

crawfordtech.com

Enterprise platform that converts documents into accessible formats including PDF/UA and Braille.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Web · Self-hosted

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit crawfordtech.com
Adobe Acrobat

adobe.com

Adobe's PDF toolkit: free browser tools plus the paid Acrobat Pro desktop app.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit adobe.com
Adobe PDF Accessibility Auto-Tag API

developer.adobe.com

Cloud API that adds structure tags to PDFs at scale, as a first step towards accessibility.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit developer.adobe.com
Adobe PDF Extract API

developer.adobe.com

Cloud API that extracts text, tables and structure from PDFs into JSON or Markdown.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit developer.adobe.com
Adobe PDF Library

datalogics.com

Commercial PDF SDK built on Adobe's own engine, sold and supported by Datalogics.

Cost:

From £4,489.17 a year

Runs on:

Windows · Linux · macOS · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit datalogics.com
Adobe Scan

adobe.com

Free phone scanner that turns paper into searchable PDFs in Adobe's cloud.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

iOS · Android

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit adobe.com
Allyant PDF Validator

allyant.com

Free Acrobat plug-in accessibility checker that tests a PDF against WCAG and PDF/UA and guides manual testing.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Windows

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit allyant.com
Amazon Textract

aws.amazon.com

AWS API that reads text, forms, tables and signatures from uploaded documents.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Web · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit aws.amazon.com
Antenna House Formatter

antennahouse.com

Commercial publishing formatter that lays out XSL-FO or CSS into print-quality PDF.

Cost:

From £299.33 one-off

Runs on:

Windows · Linux · macOS · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit antennahouse.com
Apache FOP

xmlgraphics.apache.org

Java XSL-FO formatter that turns XML formatting objects into PDF and print output.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit xmlgraphics.apache.org
Apache PDFBox

pdfbox.apache.org

Long-standing Apache Java library and CLI suite for creating and manipulating PDFs.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdfbox.apache.org
Apache Tika

tika.apache.org

Java toolkit that detects and extracts text and metadata from over a thousand file formats through one interface.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Linux · Windows · macOS · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit tika.apache.org
Apple Preview

support.apple.com

The macOS PDF viewer and markup editor that ships with every Mac.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

macOS · iOS

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit support.apple.com
Apryse

apryse.com

Commercial PDF SDK best known for WebViewer, its in-browser document SDK.

Cost:

From £1,112.55 a year

Runs on:

Web · Linux · iOS · Android · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit apryse.com
Aspose.PDF

products.aspose.com

Commercial PDF library and API for .NET, Java, C++ and Python, sold under a perpetual per-developer licence.

Cost:

From £889.30 one-off

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit products.aspose.com
AvePDF

avepdf.com

Free browser PDF toolkit, operated by the company behind the Nutrient SDK.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit avepdf.com
axesCheck

check.axes4.com

Free browser-based PDF/UA and WCAG accessibility checker that needs no installation.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Web

Your files:

Files leave your device

Visit check.axes4.com
axesPDF

axes4.com

Windows desktop accessibility checker and fixer for tagged PDFs, with PDF/UA machine checks and one-click repairs.

Cost:

From £482.11 a year

Runs on:

Windows

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit axes4.com
Azure AI Document Intelligence

learn.microsoft.com

Microsoft's cloud OCR and document extraction API, with an on-premises container option.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · API · Self-hosted · Linux

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit learn.microsoft.com
Bluebeam Revu

bluebeam.com

Construction-focused PDF markup and takeoff suite with genuine redaction, though the vendor's own sources disagree on which plans include it.

Cost:

From £264.00 a year

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · iOS · Android

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit bluebeam.com
borb

borbpdf.com

Dual-licensed pure-Python library for creating and manipulating PDFs, with an automatic page-layout engine and no non-Python dependencies.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit borbpdf.com
Camelot

camelot-py.readthedocs.io

Python library dedicated to pulling tables out of PDFs, with a parser chosen per document and pandas DataFrames as the output.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit camelot-py.readthedocs.io
CamScanner

camscanner.com

Mobile document scanner with OCR, PDF conversion and cloud sync.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · iOS · Android · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit camscanner.com
Chunkr

chunkr.ai

Document parsing and extraction service, run from their cloud or self-hosted from the open-source release.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

API · Self-hosted

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit chunkr.ai
CommonLook Office

allyant.com

Windows add-in that generates accessible PDFs from Word and PowerPoint and walks the author through the checkpoints.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Windows

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit allyant.com
CommonLook PDF

allyant.com

AI-assisted PDF accessibility remediation in the browser or as an Acrobat plug-in, with PDF/UA, WCAG and HHS validation.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit allyant.com
DocHub

dochub.com

Browser PDF editor and e-signature tool wired into Google Drive and Gmail.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · iOS · Android

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit dochub.com
Docling

docling-project.github.io

IBM-started open-source library that turns PDFs and office documents into structured Markdown, HTML or JSON with layout, table and reading-order models.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit docling-project.github.io
DocRaptor

docraptor.com

Hosted HTML-to-PDF API built on the Prince engine, with CSS Paged Media and tagged accessible output.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

API

Your files:

Files leave your device

Visit docraptor.com
Documenso

documenso.com

Open-source e-signature platform you can self-host or use as a hosted cloud.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Web · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit documenso.com
DocuSeal

docuseal.com

Open-source document signing and fillable PDF forms, self-hosted or cloud.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Web · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit docuseal.com
DocuSign

docusign.com

Cloud e-signature and agreement management, with audit trails.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit docusign.com
dompdf

dompdf.github.io

PHP HTML-to-PDF renderer with its own CSS 2.1 layout engine and no browser to install.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit dompdf.github.io
Dropbox Sign

sign.dropbox.com

Hosted e-signature for sending, signing and tracking agreements.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit sign.dropbox.com
Equidox

equidox.co

Cloud PDF remediation service: upload a document, tag it in a browser with automated detectors, export accessible PDF, HTML or ePub.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

Files leave your device

Visit equidox.co
Foxit PDF Editor

foxit.com

Commercial PDF editor with OCR, genuine redaction and eSign.

Cost:

From £8.15 a month

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Web · iOS · Android · API

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit foxit.com
Foxit PDF SDK

developers.foxit.com

Commercial PDF library for embedding rendering, editing, signing and redaction in your own application.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · iOS · Android · Web · Self-hosted

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit developers.foxit.com
fpdf2

github.com

Pure-Python PDF creation library with Unicode font embedding, successor to PyFPDF.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit github.com
FPDI

setasign.com

PHP library that imports pages from existing PDFs into FPDF, mPDF, TCPDF and tFPDF templates.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit setasign.com
Genius Scan

thegrizzlylabs.com

On-device mobile scanner with OCR, PDF creation and optional cloud sync.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · iOS · Android

Your files:

Reported to stay on your device

Visit thegrizzlylabs.com
Ghostscript

ghostscript.com

PostScript and PDF interpreter and SDK for converting, rasterising and compressing.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit ghostscript.com
gImageReader

github.com

Desktop GUI that runs the Tesseract OCR engine over images and PDFs.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit github.com
Goodnotes

goodnotes.com

Tablet-first note-taking and PDF annotation with sync, collaboration and AI.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

iOS · Android · Windows · macOS · Web

Your files:

Reported to stay on your device

Visit goodnotes.com
Google Chrome built-in PDF viewer

support.google.com

Chrome's PDF viewer, which OCRs scanned PDFs automatically on your device.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · Linux · Android

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit support.google.com
Google Cloud Vision API and Document AI

cloud.google.com

Google's cloud OCR: Vision for text in images, Document AI for structured extraction.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit cloud.google.com
Gotenberg

gotenberg.dev

Self-hosted Docker API for document-to-PDF conversion and PDF manipulation.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Linux · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

Your own instance

Visit gotenberg.dev
GROBID

github.com

Machine-learning extraction of scholarly PDFs into structured XML/TEI for citation and metadata mining.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted · Linux · Windows · macOS

Your files:

Reported to stay on your device

Visit github.com
GroupDocs

groupdocs.com

Document SDK family for .NET, Java, Node.js and Python, from the company behind Aspose.

Cost:

From £897.24 one-off

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit groupdocs.com
ICEpdf

icepdf.org

Open-source Java PDF engine for rendering, converting, extracting and signing.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit icepdf.org
iLovePDF

ilovepdf.com

Broad web PDF toolkit with desktop, mobile and API companions.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · iOS · Android · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit ilovepdf.com
IronPDF

ironpdf.com

Commercial in-process PDF library for .NET, Java, Python and Node.js, priced in perpetual per-developer tiers.

Cost:

From £740.96 one-off

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit ironpdf.com
iText

itextpdf.com

Java and .NET PDF library with an AGPL-3.0 core and component-specific licensing.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit itextpdf.com
JPedal

idrsolutions.com

Pure Java PDF library for rendering, extraction, viewing and manipulation, with published prices.

Cost:

From £710.90 one-off

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit idrsolutions.com
jpgtopdf

jpgtopdfmobile.com

A JPG to PDF converter that builds the PDF in your browser and never uploads your images.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · Linux · iOS · Android

Your files:

Files stayed on your device when we tested

We tested this and no file left the device.

Visit jpgtopdfmobile.com
jsPDF

github.com

Client-side JavaScript library that generates PDFs in the browser or in Node.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Web · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit github.com
LEADTOOLS PDF SDK

leadtools.com

Commercial PDF SDK for .NET, C++ and mobile targets, with OCR, forms, conversion and automatic redaction alongside the PDF API.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Windows · Linux · macOS · Android · iOS · Web · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit leadtools.com
Level Access

levelaccess.com

Digital accessibility platform covering documents as well as web, mobile and software.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Web

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit levelaccess.com
LibreOffice Draw

libreoffice.org

Free office drawing app that opens PDFs for light editing and re-export.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit libreoffice.org
LlamaParse

llamaindex.ai

Hosted parsing API that turns complex documents into Markdown, text or JSON for AI pipelines.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit llamaindex.ai
Marker

github.com

PDF-to-Markdown converter built around a vision-language model, published by Datalab as an open-source tool with a hosted API and managed platform.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit github.com
Master PDF Editor

code-industry.net

Desktop PDF editor for editing, converting and signing, with vendor-documented redaction and a demo watermark.

Cost:

From £59.30 one-off

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit code-industry.net
Microsoft Edge PDF reader

learn.microsoft.com

PDF reader built into Edge, with inking, highlighting, text notes and read aloud.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit learn.microsoft.com
Microsoft Lens

support.microsoft.com

Retired Microsoft mobile scanner, replaced by the scanner in OneDrive.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

iOS · Android

Your files:

Where files are processed: not verified

Visit support.microsoft.com
Microsoft OneDrive document scanning

support.microsoft.com

Phone scanning to PDF in OneDrive, Microsoft's official Lens replacement.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

iOS · Android

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit support.microsoft.com
Mindee

mindee.com

Cloud document AI API (V2) that turns uploaded documents into structured JSON, with a separate raw-text OCR model.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit mindee.com
mPDF

mpdf.github.io

PHP library that generates PDFs from UTF-8 HTML, and whose manual calls it dated.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit mpdf.github.io
MuPDF (mutool)

mupdf.com

Fast C PDF library plus the mutool command-line suite.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit mupdf.com
MuPDF.js

mupdfjs.readthedocs.io

Artifex's WebAssembly build of the MuPDF engine for JavaScript and browsers.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Web · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit mupdfjs.readthedocs.io
Nitro PDF Pro

gonitro.com

Commercial PDF editor and eSign suite for Windows, Mac and iOS.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · iOS

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit gonitro.com
No Fuss PDF

nofusspdf.com

Fill, sign, merge and convert PDFs without the file leaving your device.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Web

Your files:

Files stayed on your device when we tested

We tested this and no file left the device.

Visit nofusspdf.com
Notability

notability.com

Handwriting-first note app with PDF annotation, linked audio and AI study tools.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

iOS · Android · macOS · Windows · Web

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit notability.com
Nougat

github.com

Meta Platforms' academic PDF parser that reads LaTeX maths and tables into Markdown.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit github.com
Nutrient

nutrient.io

Commercial PDF SDK with a client-side web SDK and self-hosted document engine.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Web · macOS · iOS · Android · API · Self-hosted · Windows · Linux

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit nutrient.io
OCRmyPDF

ocrmypdf.readthedocs.io

Command-line tool and Python library that adds a searchable OCR text layer to scanned PDFs.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit ocrmypdf.readthedocs.io
Okular

okular.kde.org

KDE's free multi-format document viewer for PDF, EPub, comics and images.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Linux · Windows · macOS

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit okular.kde.org
OpenDocScan

opendocscan.com

A document scanner in the browser: photograph a page, straighten it, read the text and build a searchable PDF.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Web

Your files:

Files stayed on your device when we tested

We tested this and no file left the device.

Visit opendocscan.com
OpenSign

opensignlabs.com

Open-source e-signature you can self-host, or use free in their cloud.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit opensignlabs.com
PAC

pac.pdf-accessibility.org

Free Windows accessibility checker for PDF/UA and WCAG, with local AI-assisted semantic checks.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Windows

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pac.pdf-accessibility.org
PandaDoc

pandadoc.com

Hosted platform for building, sending and e-signing proposals and contracts.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · iOS · Android · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit pandadoc.com
PDF Architect

pdfforge.org

Modular Windows PDF editor from the PDFCreator team, with real redaction.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit pdfforge.org
PDF Arranger

github.com

Free GPL-licensed desktop app for merging, splitting, rearranging and adjusting PDF pages visually.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit github.com
PDF Candy

pdfcandy.com

Browser PDF toolkit with 90+ tools, plus an offline Windows desktop app.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit pdfcandy.com
PDF Compare

logrunlab.com

Compare the text of two PDFs in the browser and see exactly what changed.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Web

Your files:

Files stayed on your device when we tested

We tested this and no file left the device.

Visit logrunlab.com
PDF Expert

pdfexpert.com

Readdle's PDF editor and reader for Mac, iPad and iPhone.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

macOS · iOS

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit pdfexpert.com
PDF Studio

xodo.com

Cross-platform PDF editor for Windows, Mac and Linux, sold as Xodo PDF Studio.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit xodo.com
pdf-lib

pdf-lib.js.org

JavaScript library for creating PDFs and filling forms, pages and metadata.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Web · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdf-lib.js.org
pdf-redactor

github.com

Python library that redacts a PDF's text layer, links and metadata by regex.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit github.com
PDF-XChange Core API SDK

pdf-xchange.com

Windows SDK for creating and manipulating PDFs, now sold only to approved developers on application.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Windows

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdf-xchange.com
PDF-XChange Editor

pdf-xchange.com

Windows-only PDF editor with a large free tier and perpetual licences.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit pdf-xchange.com
PDF.js

mozilla.github.io

Mozilla's JavaScript library for parsing and rendering PDFs in the browser.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Web · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit mozilla.github.io
PDF2Go

pdf2go.com

German browser PDF toolkit for converting, compressing, OCR and redaction.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit pdf2go.com
PDF24

pdf24.org

Free ad-funded PDF toolkit online, plus a free offline Windows Creator app.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Web · Windows

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit pdf24.org
pdfaPilot

callassoftware.com

PDF/A and PDF/UA conversion, validation and correction for archiving and accessibility.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit callassoftware.com
pdfcpu

pdfcpu.io

Apache-2.0 Go PDF library and CLI for validation, assembly, extraction and encryption.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdfcpu.io
PDFescape

pdfescape.com

Long-running free browser PDF editor and form filler, with paid desktop tiers.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit pdfescape.com
PDFgear

pdfgear.com

Free cross-platform PDF editor, converter and signer with an AI copilot.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · iOS · Android · Web

Your files:

Reported to stay on your device

Visit pdfgear.com
pdfGoHTML

callassoftware.com

Free Acrobat plug-in that renders a tagged PDF as structured HTML, so a person can judge its accessibility and tagging.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Windows · macOS

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit callassoftware.com
PDFium

pdfium.googlesource.com

Google's BSD-licensed C++ PDF rendering engine, embedded in Chrome.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Android

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdfium.googlesource.com
PDFix

pdfix.net

On-premises PDF accessibility desktop app and SDK: PDF/UA and WCAG validation, auto-tagging and remediation.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdfix.net
PDFlib

pdflib.com

Long-standing commercial library for generating PDFs, with page-import and personalisation tiers.

Cost:

From £740.00 one-off

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdflib.com
pdfminer.six

pdfminersix.readthedocs.io

Pure-Python library for pulling text, images and structure out of a PDF, with a command-line tool.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Linux · Windows · macOS · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdfminersix.readthedocs.io
pdfplumber

github.com

Python library that exposes every character, line and rectangle in a PDF, with text and table extraction built on top of that.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit github.com
pdfRest

pdfrest.com

REST API for PDF processing built on Adobe PDF Library, with a self-hosted option.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

API · Self-hosted

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit pdfrest.com
PDFsam

pdfsam.org

Desktop PDF split and merge apps - Basic is free and open source, others paid.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdfsam.org
PDFsharp

docs.pdfsharp.net

AGPL or commercial .NET library for creating PDFs with GDI+-style drawing and modifying, merging and splitting existing ones.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit docs.pdfsharp.net
PDFShift

pdfshift.io

Hosted HTML-to-PDF API running headless Chromium behind a single REST endpoint.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

API

Your files:

Files leave your device

Visit pdfshift.io
pdftk-java

gitlab.com

Java port of pdftk for scripted merging, splitting, form filling and encryption.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit gitlab.com
pdfToolbox

callassoftware.com

Commercial PDF preflight, correction and standards validation, including PDF/UA checks.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit callassoftware.com
Pdftools PDF Viewer SDK

pdf-tools.com

Client-side PDF viewer SDK for web and mobile, with true redaction built in.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Web · iOS · Android · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdf-tools.com
Pdftools SDK

pdf-tools.com

Commercial SDK for PDF/A conversion, validation, compression and signing at volume.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Windows · Linux · macOS · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pdf-tools.com
pikepdf

pikepdf.readthedocs.io

Python wrapper around qpdf for reading, repairing and structurally editing PDFs.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pikepdf.readthedocs.io
Poppler

poppler.freedesktop.org

GPL PDF rendering library and command-line utilities used across Linux desktops.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Linux · Windows · macOS · Android

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit poppler.freedesktop.org
Power PDF

tungstenautomation.com

Office-style PDF editor where genuine redaction needs the Advanced tier.

Cost:

From £95.00 one-off

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · iOS · Android

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit tungstenautomation.com
PREP

continualengine.com

Continual Engine's cloud remediation platform for accessible PDFs and documents, with AI tagging, OCR and REST APIs.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Web · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit continualengine.com
Prince

princexml.com

Installed HTML and CSS typesetting engine that produces print-quality PDF, books included.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit princexml.com
PrizmDoc

accusoft.com

Accusoft's document viewing and processing APIs, with permanent redaction and AI-assisted PII detection, self-hosted or hosted.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

API · Self-hosted · Web · Windows · Linux

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit accusoft.com
PyMuPDF

pymupdf.readthedocs.io

Fast Python document library built on MuPDF, with genuine destructive redaction.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pymupdf.readthedocs.io
pypdf

github.com

Pure-Python library for splitting, merging, transforming and reading PDF documents.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted · Linux · Windows · macOS

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit github.com
Qoppa Java PDF SDK

qoppa.com

Java PDF library suite that is no longer sold: its functionality moved to Apryse Java PDF.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Self-hosted · Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit qoppa.com
qpdf

qpdf.readthedocs.io

Apache-2.0 C++ library and command-line tool for structural PDF transformations.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit qpdf.readthedocs.io
Reducto

reducto.ai

Hosted document parsing and extraction API, priced per page, for AI pipelines.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

API · Self-hosted

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit reducto.ai
ReportLab

reportlab.com

Python library for generating PDFs from code, from a low-level drawing canvas up to a page-layout engine, under a BSD licence.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit reportlab.com
RoboBraille

robobraille.org

Free email and web service that converts documents into accessible formats: Braille, audio, e-books and tagged PDF.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web

Your files:

Files leave your device

Visit robobraille.org
Scanbot SDK

scanbot.io

Commercial on-device SDK for mobile scanning, barcodes and data capture.

Cost:

From £1,854.25 a year

Runs on:

Android · iOS · Web · Windows · Linux

Your files:

Your own instance

Visit scanbot.io
Scanner Pro

readdle.com

iPhone and iPad scanner with on-device OCR, PDF merging, signing and faxing.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

iOS

Your files:

Reported to stay on your device

Visit readdle.com
Sejda

sejda.com

Browser and desktop PDF editor with 30+ tools and a limited free tier.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit sejda.com
SensusAccess

sensusaccess.com

Self-service conversion of documents into accessible formats, and remediation of inaccessible PDFs.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Web

Your files:

Files leave your device

Visit sensusaccess.com
SetaPDF-Core

setasign.com

Commercial PHP library giving low-level access to PDF objects, metadata and encryption.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit setasign.com
SignNow

signnow.com

Cloud e-signature platform for sending, signing and tracking documents.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Web · iOS · Android · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit signnow.com
SignWell

signwell.com

Straightforward e-signature service with a free tier, REST API and CLI.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · API

Your files:

Reported to upload your files

Visit signwell.com
SimplePDF

simplepdf.com

Browser PDF editor and form filler that processes files in your browser.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · API

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit simplepdf.com
Smallpdf

smallpdf.com

Browser PDF toolkit with 30+ tools and a Pro subscription, built in Switzerland.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · iOS · Android

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit smallpdf.com
SnackPDF

snackpdf.com

Your PDFs stay on your device.

Cost:

Free

Runs on:

Web

Your files:

Files stayed on your device when we tested

We tested this and no file left the device.

Visit snackpdf.com
Soda PDF

sodapdf.com

Subscription PDF suite with a Windows app, a browser edition and online AI tools.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit sodapdf.com
Solid Framework

soliddocuments.com

PDF-to-Office conversion SDK that is no longer sold separately: its technology moved into the Apryse SDK.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit soliddocuments.com
Spire.PDF

e-iceblue.com

Commercial .NET and Java PDF library whose free edition stops at ten pages.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows · Linux · macOS · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit e-iceblue.com
Stirling PDF

stirling.com

Open-source PDF suite you can self-host, run as a desktop app, or use via API.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted

Your files:

Went to our own instance, and nowhere else

Visit stirling.com
SumatraPDF

sumatrapdfreader.org

Free, open-source, lightweight PDF and ebook reader for Windows.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit sumatrapdfreader.org
Surya

github.com

Open document OCR and layout model that returns text, reading order and tables as structured output.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Linux · Windows · macOS · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit github.com
SwiftScan

swiftscan.app

Phone scanner for documents and QR codes, with OCR, signing and fax.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

iOS · Android

Your files:

Reported to stay on your device

Visit swiftscan.app
Syncfusion PDF

syncfusion.com

The PDF library inside Essential Studio, sold as part of the Document SDK rather than on its own.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted · Web

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit syncfusion.com
Tabula

tabula.technology

Local desktop and command-line table extraction from text-based PDFs, output to CSV, TSV or JSON.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit tabula.technology
tc-lib-pdf

tcpdf.org

PHP PDF library built from focused packages, the successor to the deprecated TCPDF.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit tcpdf.org
Telerik Document Processing Libraries

telerik.com

Progress's .NET libraries for creating, editing and converting PDF, Word and Excel files with no Office, Acrobat or UI dependency.

Cost:

Paid

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit telerik.com
Tesseract OCR

tesseract-ocr.github.io

Open-source OCR engine and command-line tool, with no graphical interface.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit tesseract-ocr.github.io
Tesseract.js

tesseract.projectnaptha.com

WebAssembly port of the Tesseract OCR engine for browsers and Node.js.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Web · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit tesseract.projectnaptha.com
Unstructured

github.com

Open-source partitioning of PDFs and other documents into structured elements for LLM pipelines.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Self-hosted · Linux · Windows · macOS

Your files:

Reported to stay on your device

Visit github.com
veraPDF

verapdf.org

Industry-backed open source accessibility validator for PDF/A and PDF/UA conformance.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit verapdf.org
Vivliostyle

vivliostyle.org

Open-source CSS typesetting project that turns HTML into print-quality PDF, in a browser or a CLI.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Web · Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit vivliostyle.org
WeasyPrint

weasyprint.org

Open-source Python library that turns HTML and CSS into PDF documents.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Self-hosted

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit weasyprint.org
Wondershare PDFelement

pdf.wondershare.com

Cross-platform PDF editor with OCR, Smart Redact and AI tools.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · iOS · Android

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit pdf.wondershare.com
Xodo

xodo.com

Apryse's cross-platform PDF suite: browser tools, a desktop editor and mobile apps.

Cost:

Free + paid

Runs on:

Web · Windows · macOS · Linux · iOS · Android

Your files:

Mixed - depends on version and feature

Visit xodo.com
Xournal++

xournalpp.github.io

Open-source handwriting app for annotating PDFs with a stylus on desktop.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Windows · macOS · Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit xournalpp.github.io
zathura

pwmt.org

Keyboard-driven, plugin-based document viewer for Linux, with PDF handled by poppler or MuPDF.

Cost:

Open source

Runs on:

Linux

Your files:

No server involved

No server anywhere in the path.

Visit pwmt.org