OSI-licensed open source
Open-source PDF tools cover generating, merging, splitting, rendering, editing and securing PDF files without per-document SaaS fees. Developers usually need either a library for their language or a self-hosted service they can call over HTTP.
This page lists nine maintained projects, grouped by what they do best: a self-hosted editor (Stirling-PDF), a viewer (PDF.js), libraries for Java, Python, JavaScript and Go, an HTML-to-PDF API (Gotenberg) and a command-line transformer (QPDF). Licences were read from each repository.
Tools, licences and pricing checked against vendor and repository pages on November 7, 2026.
| Tool | Best for | Pricing | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stirling-PDF | Self-hosted PDF editing UI and API | Free MIT-licensed core (self-hosted); paid Server and Enterprise plans - see vendor pricing | MIT |
| PDF.js | Rendering PDFs in the browser | Free, open source | Apache-2.0 |
| Apache PDFBox | Java PDF manipulation and text extraction | Free, open source | Apache-2.0 |
| pypdf | Python scripts that merge or split PDFs | Free, open source | BSD-3-Clause |
| pdf-lib | Editing and filling PDFs in Node or the browser | Free, open source | MIT |
| Gotenberg | HTML or Office to PDF as a microservice | Free, open source | MIT |
| QPDF | CLI PDF restructuring and encryption | Free, open source | Apache-2.0 |
| pdfcpu | Go services and CLI PDF processing | Free, open source | Apache-2.0 |
| jsPDF | Generating PDFs in the browser | Free, open source | MIT |
Best for: Self-hosted PDF editing UI and API · Free MIT-licensed core (self-hosted); paid Server and Enterprise plans - see vendor pricing
Stirling-PDF is an open-core PDF editing platform with a web UI and API you can self-host. The core is MIT licensed while proprietary directories and paid enterprise features exist.
Best for: Rendering PDFs in the browser · Free, open source
PDF.js is a community-driven PDF viewer built with HTML5 and supported by Mozilla.
Best for: Java PDF manipulation and text extraction · Free, open source
PDFBox is an open-source Java tool for creating, modifying and extracting content from PDF documents.
Best for: Python scripts that merge or split PDFs · Free, open source
pypdf is a pure-Python library for splitting, merging, cropping and transforming the pages of PDF files.
Best for: Editing and filling PDFs in Node or the browser · Free, open source
pdf-lib creates and modifies PDF documents in any JavaScript environment.
Best for: HTML or Office to PDF as a microservice · Free, open source
Gotenberg is a developer-friendly API for converting many document formats into PDF files, and more.
Best for: CLI PDF restructuring and encryption · Free, open source
QPDF is a command-line tool and C++ library for structural PDF transformations such as linearization, encryption, splitting and merging. It does not render PDFs or extract text.
Best for: Go services and CLI PDF processing · Free, open source
pdfcpu is a Go library and command-line tool for validating, optimizing, encrypting, signing and otherwise processing PDFs.
Best for: Generating PDFs in the browser · Free, open source
jsPDF is a client-side JavaScript library for generating PDFs in the browser and in Node.js.
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| If you need… | Start with |
|---|---|
| Self-hosted PDF editor for non-developers | Stirling-PDF |
| Convert HTML or Office files to PDF via API | Gotenberg |
| Generate PDFs in the browser | jsPDF, pdf-lib |
| Merge or split in Python | pypdf |
| Java processing | Apache PDFBox |
| CLI restructuring or encryption | QPDF, pdfcpu |
Quick answers to common questions
It depends on the language. jsPDF suits browsers, Gotenberg suits HTML-to-PDF services, and PDFBox suits Java.
Stirling-PDF and pdf-lib both support editing, one as a self-hosted app and the other as a library.
PDF.js renders in the browser. QPDF explicitly does not render or extract text.
All nine here use permissive licences (MIT, Apache-2.0 or BSD-3-Clause). Other projects such as PyMuPDF use AGPL.
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