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Stirling-PDF

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Merge, split, convert and process PDF documents on your own server.

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What you can use it for

Merge, split, convert and process PDF documents on your own server.

  • Covers the core everyday task of Adobe Acrobat, Smallpdf, Adobe Acrobat Pro and Nitro PDF Pro: editing, merging, splitting, signing and converting PDFs.
  • 94.3k GitHub stars; last commit 2026-10-15. Creators report self-hosting it for complicated PDF tasks and listing it in daily-use stacks as an "all-in-one PDF toolkit".
Workflow coverage and comparison notes

Host your own local, containerised web suite for PDF page reorganizing, redaction, OCR, password removal and multi-format conversion using Stirling-PDF instead of commercial Foxit PDF Editor seats. For ZenDocs: Merge, split, convert and compress PDFs with the ordinary self-hosted PDF tools. Free plan supports five users; running the server costs resources. AI, automation and API-key processing have separate allowances. Not full document-editor or AI parity.

Before you switch

Not blanket MIT. Verify solo-commercial terms, free component boundaries, credit unit and secure redaction output. Depth for print/prepress-grade typography and certified redaction differs from Acrobat Pro; self-hosting means you run the server. Current free plan: up to five users. AI, Processor automation and API-key usage have separate processing allowances; this recommendation covers ordinary PDF tools, not unlimited automated or AI processing.

Alternatives to these paid apps

Each comparison covers the workflow described above, rather than every paid feature.

More for the same workflow

See alternatives →
NAPS2

Scan documents, recognise their text and arrange pages into searchable PDFs.

Free desktop app · GPL-2.0-or-later · No scan/OCR quota · Windows, macOS and Linux

Alternative to Adobe Acrobat