Alternatives to Cpdf
Command-line PDF toolkit covering split, merge, stamp and encrypt. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Cpdf
Command-line PDF toolkit covering split, merge, stamp and encrypt.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Cpdf.
PDFtk Server
Command-line PDF toolkit for merging, splitting and stamping.
PDFtk Server offers terse, scriptable merging, splitting and stamping plus form filling from FDF data, but commercial use also requires a paid licence.
qpdf
Command-line tool for content-preserving PDF transformations.
qpdf is free and open source under Apache-2.0, focusing on lossless structural transformations and JSON dumping, without rendering or text extraction.
pdfcpu
Go library and command line for validating and transforming PDFs.
pdfcpu is free Apache-2.0 software shipped as a single static binary that doubles as a Go library, though some edge-case PDFs still fail.
mutool (MuPDF)
Command-line companion to MuPDF for PDF extraction, cleaning and merging.
mutool is a free open-source MuPDF companion for extraction, cleaning and merging, with documentation aimed at developers integrating MuPDF.
Ghostscript
PostScript and PDF interpreter behind a great deal of other software.
Ghostscript is AGPL-3.0 open source and focuses on PDF conversion and compression, with a cryptic option set and paid licences for commercial redistribution.
PDFsam Basic
Splits, merges, rotates and extracts PDF pages entirely offline, in batches rather than one file at a time.
PDFsam Basic swaps the command line for an open-source desktop interface that batch splits, merges and rotates, without stamping or encryption in the free edition.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Cpdf as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
PDF Mix Tool
A lightweight open-source Linux app for merging, splitting, rotating and rearranging PDF pages.
Cpdf is a closed-source command-line toolkit covering split, merge, stamp and encrypt, free only for non-commercial use, with APIs for several languages.
pdfjam
Command-line tool that combines, n-ups, rotates, scales and rearranges PDF pages into print-ready files.
Cpdf covers a very wide range of page operations from one binary with language APIs, but it is closed source and free only for non-commercial use.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Poppler
PDF rendering library with pdftotext, pdftoppm and pdfinfo tools.
diff-pdf
Compares two PDF files visually and writes out a PDF with the differences highlighted.
MuPDF
Compact, very fast PDF and XPS viewer with a command-line toolkit.
Stirling PDF
A self-hosted web PDF toolkit for merging, splitting, converting, signing and editing PDFs on your own server.
Xpdf
A PDF viewer plus command-line tools for extracting text and images and converting PDFs to HTML.
pdf2htmlEX
A command-line converter that turns PDF files into HTML while keeping text and layout.
