Alternatives to qpdf

Command-line tool for content-preserving PDF transformations. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.

Replacements

Listings that take over the same core job as qpdf.

  • pdfcpu

    Go library and command line for validating and transforming PDFs.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    pdfcpu is a single static Go binary with no dependencies that also works as a Go library, though some edge-case PDFs still fail because it is newer.

  • mutool (MuPDF)

    Command-line companion to MuPDF for PDF extraction, cleaning and merging.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    mutool adds extraction, cleaning and merging built on the MuPDF engine, stays open source and command-line only, and its documentation targets developers integrating MuPDF.

  • PDFtk Server

    Command-line PDF toolkit for merging, splitting and stamping.

    FreemiumProprietaryWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    PDFtk Server offers a terse, stable scripting syntax and can fill PDF forms from FDF data, but it is closed source and commercial use requires a paid licence.

  • Cpdf

    Command-line PDF toolkit covering split, merge, stamp and encrypt.

    FreemiumProprietaryWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    Cpdf covers a very wide operation set including stamping, encryption and typesetting text, with APIs for several languages, but it is closed source and free only for non-commercial use.

Also worth comparing

These listings name qpdf as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.

  • Ghostscript

    PostScript and PDF interpreter behind a great deal of other software.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    qpdf under Apache-2.0 rewrites PDF structure losslessly for pipelines, but does no rendering, conversion or text extraction.

  • PDF Arranger

    Drag PDF pages into the order you want, rotate them, crop them, and merge two files together.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsLinux

    qpdf is an Apache-2.0 command-line tool for lossless page selection and merging, suited to scripts but without any graphical interface.

  • PDF Mix Tool

    A lightweight open-source Linux app for merging, splitting, rotating and rearranging PDF pages.

    FreeOpen sourceLinux

    qpdf is an Apache-2.0 command-line tool for lossless PDF transformations including page selection and merging, with no graphical interface.

  • pdfjam

    Command-line tool that combines, n-ups, rotates, scales and rearranges PDF pages into print-ready files.

    FreeOpen sourceCommand line

    qpdf rewrites PDF structure losslessly and can dump PDFs to JSON for scripted editing, without LaTeX, but it is not focused on print layouts.

Similar software

Related functionality, not a direct replacement.