Compress a PDF
Making a PDF smaller usually means trading quality for size. These tools take different approaches to that trade - some just downsample images, others rebuild the whole document.
47 tools here do less than the name of this job suggests, and each one's profile says what it actually does. That sentence is on the profile rather than repeated on every row.
47 options · Sources read 16 October 2026 · No compression tests have been performed. Sizes and quality here are described by the vendors, and we have not run the same document through these tools.
- What it takes, and what it produces
- In: a PDF. Out: a smaller PDF, or very nearly the same one if the tool cannot improve it.
- What limits it
- No vendor promises a particular reduction, because it depends on what is already in the file. The limit that matters is the one you have to meet, such as an upload or mailbox cap, not one the tool publishes.
Compress tools: controls, file handling and cost
These are different ways to do the same job. The order does not indicate quality, and where we have not checked something the row says so rather than guessing.
- 47
- tools handle this job
- 24
- keep the file on your device
- Observed by us, or no server anywhere in the path. Of the other 23: 3 upload your file; 18 process some versions on your device and run others on a server; 1 is documented as staying local but has not been tested; 1 runs on a server you provide.
47 tools for compressing
Ordered by relevance to this job, not by payment. Our overall ranking is in the full index.
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Our pick 2: A command-line workhorse under a permissive licence. Local, scriptable, and the engine underneath several other tools here.
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Our pick 5: A Go library and CLI for validation, encryption and assembly. Local, and honest enough to say its PDF 2.0 validation is basic.
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Our pick 1: Run it yourself and nothing leaves your network. Redaction deletes the matching text without flattening the page - we tested that on our own instance.
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Our pick 3: Desktop splitting and merging with no upload, and a policy that states plainly that no PDF content is sent to their servers.
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Our pick 4: Local Python around qpdf, and the project whose own documentation says programmatic redaction cannot be reliable. That warning is the most useful sentence in this index.
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Our pick 7: Free, open source, no subscription and no bundled software. The reader to install when you want nothing else installed.
Choosing between them
- iLovePDF vs Smallpdf The two biggest browser PDF toolkits, both of which upload your files.
- SnackPDF vs SimplePDF Two browser tools whose editing says the file stays on your device.
- Smallpdf vs Sejda Two browser toolkits that both upload your file, at very different prices.
- What to use instead of Smallpdf
Every listing here is a real product with a real website, checked for whether it is still working. Nothing on this page is paid for and no placement can be bought. Where we have not verified something, the row says so rather than guessing.
Choosing between presets, adjustable controls and an offline tool
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A preset, where the tool decides
One or two clicks, and the trade between size and quality is made for you. Fine for emailing; hard to reason about when the result is too soft or not small enough.
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Adjustable image settings
Resolution and quality as numbers you set. This is where the size actually comes from on a scanned document, because the images are most of the file.
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An offline tool
Nothing is uploaded, so it works on a document you would rather not send anywhere, and on a machine with no connection. It is a separate application to install and keep updated.
Lowering image resolution or quality is what reduces size, and a lossless mode may produce a much smaller reduction. A smaller file on its own is not evidence that the result is better, and this index has run no compression measurements, so nothing here ranks compression quality.
Check the result
- - Keep the original. Compress a copy and save it separately, so the comparison is still possible later.
- - Check the new size against the limit you actually have to meet, which is often an upload or mailbox cap rather than a target you chose.
- - Open the pages with small text, scanned text, photographs and diagrams and read them at the size you will use them.
- - If the document has forms, links or bookmarks, check those survived, and be careful with options that remove annotations or flatten forms.
Sources and scope
Every fact on this page comes from a vendor's own page. Each profile records the URL we read, the date, and the SHA-256 of the text, so a reader can check the bytes.
- Adobe Acrobat 4 sourced claims, read 21 September 2026
- Ghostscript 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- qpdf 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- Aspose.PDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- AvePDF 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- iLovePDF 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- PDF Candy 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Smallpdf 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- SnackPDF 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Syncfusion PDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Wondershare PDFelement 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- PDF2Go 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- Apryse 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- IronPDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- MuPDF (mutool) 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDF Studio 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDF-XChange Editor 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- pdfcpu 1 sourced claim, read 16 October 2026
- PDFgear 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Power PDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Soda PDF 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- Stirling PDF 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- Foxit PDF Editor 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- CamScanner 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- iText 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Nutrient 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDF-XChange Core API SDK 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDFsam 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Pdftools SDK 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- pikepdf 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Apple Preview 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Master PDF Editor 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDF Expert 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PyMuPDF 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- LibreOffice Draw 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- SumatraPDF 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- MuPDF.js 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDFescape 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Apache PDFBox 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- Adobe PDF Library 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- LEADTOOLS PDF SDK 3 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- pdfRest 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- Qoppa Java PDF SDK 2 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
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