Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF

Stirling-PDF — a locally-hosted, web-based PDF manipulation tool. Merge, split, rotate, OCR, convert, sign, edit.

What it is

A Java + Spring Boot web app that provides ~50 PDF operations (merge, split, rotate, watermark, OCR, sign, encrypt, convert to/from Word/HTML/images, more) via a browser UI. Self-hosted via Docker — no PDFs leave your machine. Aimed at users who don't want to upload sensitive documents to commercial PDF SaaS tools.

Key features

50+ PDF operations across merge/split/rotate/OCR/convert/sign/edit categories.
Web UI accessible from any device on the local network.
Self-host via Docker.
OCR support via Tesseract.
API for headless usage.
MIT-licensed.

Tech stack

Java + Spring Boot on the backend.
TypeScript at the language tag — companion JS for the UI.
Distributed via Docker.

When to reach for it

You want a self-hosted PDF toolkit for sensitive documents.
You're tired of uploading PDFs to commercial SaaS for simple edits.
You're standing up internal tools for a privacy-sensitive org.

When not to reach for it

You want a desktop GUI — Stirling-PDF is a web service.
You need professional-grade PDF editing — Adobe Acrobat, Foxit are commercial options.

Maturity signal

Actively maintained.

Alternatives

SmallPDF, ILovePDF — commercial SaaS.
pdftk + custom CLI — for CLI-only workflows.
LibreOffice Draw — desktop GUI PDF editing.

Wiki: Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF