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Cpdf vs qpdf: catalog facts
Cpdf	qpdf
Freemium Free for non-commercial use. Commercial use requires a paid licence.	Free Free and open source under the Apache licence.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
Very wide operation set from one binary, including typesetting text onto pages APIs for Java, .NET, C, Python and JavaScript alongside the CLI	Rewrites PDF structure losslessly, which makes it ideal in pipelines Can dump and rebuild a PDF as JSON for scripted editing
Free only for non-commercial use Closed source	No rendering or text extraction; those need other tools Command line only
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Closed source	Open source
License not stated	License: Apache-2.0
Not stated if an account is needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.