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qpdf vs pdfly: catalog facts
qpdf	pdfly
Free Free and open source under the Apache licence.	Free Free software under the BSD 3-Clause license.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Command line
Rewrites PDF structure losslessly, which makes it ideal in pipelines Can dump and rebuild a PDF as JSON for scripted editing	Includes commands for PDF extraction, editing and conversion Can create booklet layouts and verify signed PDFs
No rendering or text extraction; those need other tools Command line only	Command-line interface requires comfort with terminal commands
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: BSD-3-Clause
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 October 8, 2026

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