Alternatives to pdfcpu
Go library and command line for validating and transforming PDFs. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
pdfcpu
Go library and command line for validating and transforming PDFs.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as pdfcpu.
qpdf
Command-line tool for content-preserving PDF transformations.
qpdf is an Apache-2.0 command-line tool that rewrites PDF structure losslessly and can dump PDFs as JSON, but it is not a Go library.
PDFtk Server
Command-line PDF toolkit for merging, splitting and stamping.
PDFtk Server offers terse, stable syntax and FDF form filling, but it is closed source, commercial use requires a paid licence, and packaging varies by platform.
Cpdf
Command-line PDF toolkit covering split, merge, stamp and encrypt.
Cpdf has a very wide operation set with APIs for Java, .NET, C, Python and JavaScript, but it is closed source and free only for non-commercial use.
mutool (MuPDF)
Command-line companion to MuPDF for PDF extraction, cleaning and merging.
mutool is MuPDF's open-source command-line 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 an AGPL interpreter for PostScript, PDF, PCL and XPS used for conversion and compression, with a cryptic option set.
Also worth comparing
These listings name pdfcpu 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.
pdfcpu is an Apache-2.0 single static binary and Go library for transforming PDFs from the command line, without a graphical interface.
pdfjam
Command-line tool that combines, n-ups, rotates, scales and rearranges PDF pages into print-ready files.
pdfcpu is an Apache-licensed single static binary and Go library for transforming PDFs with no dependencies, though some edge-case PDFs still fail.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Poppler
PDF rendering library with pdftotext, pdftoppm and pdfinfo tools.
PDFsam Basic
Splits, merges, rotates and extracts PDF pages entirely offline, in batches rather than one file at a time.
diff-pdf
Compares two PDF files visually and writes out a PDF with the differences highlighted.
PDF Arranger
Drag PDF pages into the order you want, rotate them, crop them, and merge two files together.
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.
