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Ghostscript vs qpdf: catalog facts
Ghostscript	qpdf
Free Free and open source under the AGPL. Commercial licensing is sold separately.	Free Free and open source under the Apache licence.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
Handles PostScript, PDF, PCL and XPS in one interpreter The de facto engine for PDF conversion and compression in print workflows	Rewrites PDF structure losslessly, which makes it ideal in pipelines Can dump and rebuild a PDF as JSON for scripted editing
Command line with a famously cryptic option set Commercial redistribution requires a paid Artifex licence	No rendering or text extraction; those need other tools Command line only
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: AGPL-3.0	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.