Compare software

Smallpdf vs Stirling PDF: catalog facts
Smallpdf	Stirling PDF
Freemium A limited free tier is available. Pro is a paid subscription.	Freemium Free plan is $0/month with no card required (60+ tools, web/desktop/self-hosted, 500…
Windows, Android, iOS, Web	Windows, macOS, Linux, Web, Self-hosted
Clean, fast interface that covers the common PDF chores Desktop and mobile apps alongside the browser tools	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
Free use is capped at a couple of documents per day Files are processed on their servers	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
Web application	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.