pdfRest
REST API for PDF processing built on Adobe PDF Library, with a self-hosted option.
Operated by Datalogics
Where your files are processed
Reported to upload your files
The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this. This covers the web service. We have not checked self-hosted instance, and we do not extend the finding to it.
A hosted REST API: the document is posted to Datalogics and processed there. The same endpoints are sold as a container you can deploy on-premises or in a private cloud, which the vendor describes as achieving "total independence" — so the same product can be local or hosted, and which one you get is a licensing and deployment choice rather than a feature. Recorded as not-local because the default and the documented quick start is the hosted API.
What it does
pdfRest is an HTTP API for the ordinary PDF jobs — convert, merge, split, compress, redact, OCR, sign, extract — built on Adobe PDF Library rather than on an open-source engine. Every endpoint is reachable in a browser through an API Lab before you write any code, and clients are documented in JavaScript, Python, PHP, C# and cURL. It is sold by Datalogics, the company that also sells the underlying library, and the same endpoints can be deployed in your own container instead of calling theirs.
Best for: Teams that want PDF processing as an HTTP call without embedding a library, particularly where the fidelity argument for Adobe's engine matters and where a self-hosted container is acceptable as an alternative to a public API. The API Lab makes it unusually easy to evaluate before integrating.
Worth knowing: It is a hosted service by default, so documents are uploaded to Datalogics unless you deploy the container yourself — and the choice between those two is a deployment decision that changes what you have to trust, not a setting. Being built on Adobe PDF Library means it inherits that engine's strengths but also its cost structure: this is a paid API with a free starter allowance rather than a generous free tier, and there is pricing is published per deployment: there is a Cloud, an AWS and a Container matrix, and the Cloud Starter tier currently includes 100 API calls a month with watermarked output. The vendor claims over 55 years in the document business, which is a claim about a company's history rather than about this product; the API itself is far younger and no launch date is published. And as with any API of this shape, the endpoints are individually documented, so a reader wanting one specific behaviour — how redaction is performed, what OCR engine is used, what the retention policy is — should read that endpoint's page rather than the marketing site. Upload hard limits, included-size thresholds and fees are three separate things and are recorded by plan, as is file retention. Billing counts more than a call per document: authenticated POST and DELETE requests and status polling are billable, so the call allowance is not a document count. Hosted, customer-AWS and container deployment are separate, and a container is not automatically an offline licence. Merge, Compress, Sign and Extract capability is documented with endpoint and plan scope.
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
- API · Self-hosted
- Website
- pdfrest.com
- Requires an account
- Not verified
- Free tier
- Yes
- Watermark on the free tier
- Yes
- Maximum file size
- Not verified
- Batch processing
- Yes
- Data residency
- Not verified
- Open source
- No
- Self-hostable
- Yes
- Licence
- Commercial, pay-as-you-go monthly subscription; free Starter account
- Redaction
- Removes the content
- Programmatic access
- HTTP API
- Last availability check
- Responded in 65 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.
“Redact PDF is a REST API tool designed to securely remove sensitive information from PDF documents, ensuring privacy and compliance with data protection regulations.”
What that does not establish: The endpoint's own page says removal and describes the mechanism as sanitising rather than covering: redaction "by targeting specific text or using custom regular expressions to detect and sanitize PII, financial data, and other sensitive content", with presets for phone numbers, email addresses and URLs. That is a documented removal claim for the specific endpoint rather than a word in a shared feature list, which is the standard applied elsewhere in this index. What it does not establish: a test. The index records eight redaction verdicts as tested and this is not one of them, and no page read states whether metadata or attachments are handled. A reader relying on it for a confidential document should redact one and check, which is the same advice this index gives for every untested verdict.
What the vendor says
Claims are labelled rather than repeated as fact. Where we have checked something ourselves, it says so and shows when. Checked means we read the vendor's own page and it says what we recorded — not that we tested the behaviour, unless the note says we did.
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“pdfRest is the world's most powerful PDF REST API service, powered by trusted Adobe® PDF Library™ technology.”
Checked by us — the source says this Read 1 October 2026
Confirmed. The quoted text appears in the rendered page as read on 2026-10-01. This claim was carried as reported rather than checked until this read.
Standing: Not re-read against the live source
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- Read
- https://pdfrest.com/
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- c2dfea19dbfe966ff34e398cd73219f88337502252fed2f7e21aaf9ab0268d71
How we checked: Read as rendered text in headless Chrome on 2026-10-01 and saved to the evidence archive, so the read can be repeated against the same file. Comparison ignores case, punctuation and hyphenation, which is why "open-source" on the record matches "open source" on the page.
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“Achieve total independence with a self-hosted solution. Deploy on-premises or in any private cloud, retaining complete command over your data, backend environment, and security procedures.”
Checked by us — the source says this Read 1 October 2026
Confirmed. The quoted text appears in the rendered page as read on 2026-10-01. This claim was carried as reported rather than checked until this read.
Standing: Not re-read against the live source
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- Read
- https://pdfrest.com/
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- c2dfea19dbfe966ff34e398cd73219f88337502252fed2f7e21aaf9ab0268d71
How we checked: Read as rendered text in headless Chrome on 2026-10-01 and saved to the evidence archive, so the read can be repeated against the same file. Comparison ignores case, punctuation and hyphenation, which is why "open-source" on the record matches "open source" on the page.
Each claim is quoted from the vendor's own pages. This section describes what we have and have not checked — it is not a judgement about anyone.
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.