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Poppler vs Ghostscript: catalog facts
Poppler	Ghostscript
Free Free and open source under the GPL.	Free Free and open source under the AGPL. Commercial licensing is sold separately.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
pdftotext and pdftoppm are the standard tools for extraction and rasterising Underpins PDF rendering across the Linux desktop	Handles PostScript, PDF, PCL and XPS in one interpreter The de facto engine for PDF conversion and compression in print workflows
Licensed under the GPL, so programs calling it must be too A library plus utilities rather than an application	Command line with a famously cryptic option set Commercial redistribution requires a paid Artifex licence
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: GPL-2.0	License: AGPL-3.0
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.