Alternatives to PDFtk Server
Command-line PDF toolkit for merging, splitting and stamping. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
PDFtk Server
Command-line PDF toolkit for merging, splitting and stamping.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as PDFtk Server.
qpdf
Command-line tool for content-preserving PDF transformations.
qpdf is free Apache-2.0 software for lossless PDF restructuring with JSON dump and rebuild, but it lacks PDFtk's FDF form filling.
Cpdf
Command-line PDF toolkit covering split, merge, stamp and encrypt.
Cpdf offers a wider operation set including typesetting text onto pages, with language APIs, but is also closed source and free only for non-commercial use.
pdfcpu
Go library and command line for validating and transforming PDFs.
pdfcpu is a free Apache-2.0 single static binary that also works 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 MuPDF's free open-source command-line tool for extraction, cleaning and merging, with documentation aimed at developers.
Ghostscript
PostScript and PDF interpreter behind a great deal of other software.
Ghostscript is an AGPL-3.0 interpreter for PostScript, PDF, PCL and XPS used for conversion and compression, with a famously cryptic option set.
Also worth comparing
These listings name PDFtk Server 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.
PDFtk Server is a command-line tool for merging, splitting and stamping with a scriptable syntax, but commercial use requires a paid licence.
pdfjam
Command-line tool that combines, n-ups, rotates, scales and rearranges PDF pages into print-ready files.
PDFtk Server merges, splits and stamps PDFs with a terse scriptable syntax and form filling from FDF, but commercial use needs a paid licence.
PDFsam Basic
Splits, merges, rotates and extracts PDF pages entirely offline, in batches rather than one file at a time.
PDFtk Server does merging, splitting and stamping from the command line with scriptable syntax, replacing a GUI, and commercial use requires a paid licence.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Poppler
PDF rendering library with pdftotext, pdftoppm and pdfinfo tools.
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.
