SimplePDF
Browser PDF editor and form filler that processes files in your browser.
Where your files are processed
Reported to stay on your device
Claimed by the vendor. Not yet independently verified.
The editor processes PDFs in the browser on every plan, in the vendor's own words. Worth knowing: on paid plans without bring-your-own-storage, the completed submission is stored by SimplePDF in the EU, and a value taken from a form field can be stored and appear in notification emails.
What it does
SimplePDF is an in-browser PDF editor for filling, editing, signing and merging documents without installing anything or creating an account. On the free editor the PDF is opened and modified in the browser and the finished file is generated and downloaded on your own device. Paid plans add hosted form-submission collection, email and webhook notifications, embedding into a site or app, custom branding, bring-your-own-storage and an API.
Best for: Individuals who need to fill, sign, merge or lightly edit a PDF privately and for free, and businesses that want an embeddable form-filling workflow pointed at their own storage.
Worth knowing: It is a filler and light editor rather than a document-processing suite: no OCR, no compression and no password protection. Its white-out feature lays a white background over text rather than removing it, so it is not redaction.
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 · API
- Website
- simplepdf.com
- Requires an account
- No
- Free tier
- Yes
- Watermark on the free tier
- No
- Maximum file size
- Not verified
- Batch processing
- Not verified
- Data residency
- European Union
- Open source
- No
- Self-hostable
- Not verified
- Licence
- Not verified
- Redaction
- No redaction feature
- Programmatic access
- HTTP API · Browser JavaScript
- Last availability check
- Responded in 400 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 4 October 2026. Not tested by us.
What that does not establish: The vendor documents a white-out tool, and a white-out covers text rather than removing it. Secure removal of the underlying content has not been established by this audit, so this is recorded as no redaction rather than as an absence of any related feature: the guide exists and says what the tool does.
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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“On every plan, including the free editor, SimplePDF processes PDFs entirely in the user's browser.”
Checked by us — the source says this Read 22 September 2026
Confirmed verbatim, and this one is worth reading in full because the page qualifies it carefully rather than overclaiming. "Processing: always happens in the browser" is stated as a separate line, and the surrounding text explains the mechanics: no document content is sent to SimplePDF servers while filling, signing or modifying, so "SimplePDF has no server-side copy of the PDF to access or expose". It then draws the boundary honestly — the Pro plan can upload completed documents directly from the browser to storage you own using presigned URLs, and "SimplePDF never stores the file". This is the strongest local-processing claim the index holds after SnackPDF's tested one, and unlike most it distinguishes the editing phase from the storage phase. Not tested; our locality instrument does not currently cover it.
Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- da5a711ac39b91a367007f4e4949b6ac230571574a668944f78f17d386945b5f
How we checked: Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://simplepdf.com/help/faq/is-simplepdf-hipaa-compliant re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-simplepdf-com-help-faq-is-simplepdf-hipaa-compliant-4f84eb67.txt.
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“Trusted by 100 000+ people worldwide”
Checked by us — the source says this Read 22 September 2026
Confirmed verbatim, including the space-separated thousands separator: the page reads "Trusted by 100 000+ people worldwide". That formatting is a localisation tell rather than an error, and it is recorded as the vendor wrote it. As with the other social-proof claims in this batch — Adobe's 5 million companies, Docusign's 1.9 million, PDF Expert's 30 million, SignWell's business count — no source or date accompanies the figure and none was sought, because the vendor publishes no method behind it. Recorded as the vendor's assertion. It is a vendor figure and it is reported as one: the number is theirs, its method is not published, and we have not audited usage. Whether it looks plausible is not a finding.
Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- bf9acf132b0b85a0b6ddda2c52e4577e4563278a682563571d5ca34fa3bc0236
How we checked: Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://simplepdf.com/ re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-simplepdf-com-bb9a9dc9.txt.
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.
Compared head to head
- SimplePDF vs SnackPDF Two browser tools whose editing says the file stays on your device.