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iLovePDF Desktop vs Stirling PDF: catalog facts
iLovePDF Desktop	Stirling PDF
Freemium A limited free tier is available. Premium is a paid subscription.	Freemium Free plan is $0/month with no card required (60+ tools, web/desktop/self-hosted, 500…
Windows, macOS	Windows, macOS, Linux, Web, Self-hosted
Processing happens locally rather than uploading files to a server Batch processing across many documents at once	55+ PDF tools covering signing, converting, merging, editing, OCR and redaction, chained in a stateful workspace with… Runs on Docker, bare metal, Kubernetes or as native desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux
Most tools are restricted without a premium subscription Windows and macOS only, closed source	Open-core: SSO, external database, Google Drive integration, SAML and audit logs are gated behind paid Team or… Manual server setup needs Java 25+ plus LibreOffice and Tesseract for conversions and OCR
Downloadable app	Self-hosted, Downloadable app, Web application, Hosted service
Closed source	Open source
License not stated	License: MIT
Not stated if an account is needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 20, 2026

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