PDF24
Free ad-funded PDF toolkit online, plus a free offline Windows Creator app.
Where your files are processed
Mixed — depends on version and feature
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.
This verdict is for the online tools, which PDF24's own pages say run in the cloud on their servers, with files stored for about an hour. The separate PDF24 Creator for Windows works offline and explicitly does not upload files — the opposite answer for the same brand.
What it does
PDF24 comes in two parts: browser tools covering merge, split, compress, edit, sign, OCR, conversion and password protection, and PDF24 Creator, a downloadable Windows application that adds a virtual PDF printer, a reader and offline batch processing. The online tools upload your file to PDF24's servers; Creator does the same work on your own PC.
Best for: Anyone who wants capable PDF tools at no cost and without an account, especially Windows users who want an offline virtual PDF printer.
Worth knowing: The website tools are funded by advertising and depend on uploading your document to PDF24's servers. The fully offline Creator is Windows-only, with no macOS or Linux version.
Details, and where each comes from
Vendor statements, our own reading of their pages, and the things nobody has established yet, each answered separately. Where we have not confirmed something it says so rather than guessing, and a row nobody has established is greyed out.
- Versions covered
- Web · Windows
- Website
- pdf24.org
- Requires an account
- No
- Watermark on the free tier
- No
- Maximum file size
- Not verified
- Batch processing
- Yes
- Data residency
- European Union
- Open source
- Not verified
- Self-hostable
- No
- Licence
- Not verified
- Redaction
- Removes the content
- Programmatic access
- None
- Last availability check
- Responded in 56 ms 16 October 2026
Checked automatically by our own runner, not reported by the vendor. 100% of our last 30 checks got a response.
What the redaction verdict rests on
From the vendor's own documentation, read 22 September 2026. Not tested by us.
“Black out confidential text and images with a pen or shapes, pages are rasterized on saving so hidden content is removed for good and cannot be restored”
What that does not establish: The vendor’s own tool page, not a test we ran. Stating the mechanism is the useful part: the pages are RASTERIZED on saving, so the hidden content is gone — and so is the rest of that page’s text layer, which is the same cost as SnackPDF, one of the tools we did test. PDF24 also documents a separate "Erase or white out" feature in its help centre; that is a different operation and is not covered by this verdict. The tool is cloud-based, so the file is uploaded before it is redacted.
Sponsorship is distribution, not an endorsement or a promise of search rankings, AI citations, traffic, or sales. This listing is a free entry, compiled from published sources.
Related reading
- Which PDF tools really redact — which tools remove the content rather than cover it.
Compared head to head
- PDF24 vs iLovePDF A paid browser toolkit against a free one, on the fact that matters most.
Alternatives to PDF24
What to use instead of PDF24 The tools in this index that do the same jobs, and what separates them.