PDF manipulation
merge, split, rotate, reorder, crop
// official site: stirlingpdf.com ↗
DOCUMENTS · PRO TIER
Stirling-PDFpro
Stirling-PDF is a locally-hosted PDF toolkit with 50+ tools in one Docker container — merge, split, rotate, OCR, sign, compress, convert, watermark, redact. Self-hosted alternative to iLovePDF, SmallPDF, Adobe Acrobat Online — your PDFs never leave your network.
// What it is
A closer look.
Stirling-PDF is a locally-hosted PDF toolkit with 50+ tools in one Docker container — merge, split, rotate, OCR, sign, compress, convert, watermark, redact. Self-hosted alternative to iLovePDF, SmallPDF, Adobe Acrobat Online — your PDFs never leave your network.
The "Swiss army knife of PDF" — most comprehensive OSS PDF toolkit available.
// Use cases
What it's for.
Concrete scenarios where teams pick Stirling-PDF over the SaaS alternative.
OCR scanned PDFs
Tesseract integration with 100+ languages
PDF compression
lossless + lossy reduction
Format conversion
PDF ↔ Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML, images
Sign + stamp + watermark
visual marks on documents
Redact + sanitize
remove sensitive content securely
// Who it's for
Built for these teams.
If your team profile matches one of these, Stirling-PDF is a strong fit out of the box.
Privacy-conscious users
rejecting iLovePDF / SmallPDF cloud uploads
Legal / healthcare
working with sensitive documents
Accountants / bookkeepers
processing client documents
Researchers
OCRing scanned papers
Office IT teams
providing internal PDF tools
// Differentiators
Why teams pick Stirling-PDF.
When evaluating self-hosted options for this category, here are the dimensions on which Stirling-PDF consistently lands above the alternatives.
- ✓MIT license — fully open
- ✓50+ tools — most comprehensive OSS PDF toolkit
- ✓OCR built-in — Tesseract with 100+ languages
- ✓No cloud upload — privacy by default
- ✓Active development — frequent releases
- ✓Beautiful UI — modern, drag-and-drop
// Integrations
Connects to.
The stack you'll plug Stirling-PDF into — services, protocols, and adjacent apps in the BluixApps catalog.
◇
OCR languages
100+ Tesseract language packs available
◈
Authentication
built-in users + OAuth via /configs/security.yml
◆
File handling
drag-and-drop, batch upload, ZIP support
▣
API
REST API for programmatic use
▦
Pipeline mode
chain operations for batch processing
▩
Custom branding
drop logo + CSS in /customFiles
▼
i18n
multi-language UI (English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, more)
// Adoption & deployment
Notable users & community
- 50k+ GitHub stars (top OSS PDF tool by margin)
- Active community on Discord + GitHub
- Backed by Stirling Tools company
- Featured constantly on r/selfhosted
- Strong release cadence with new tools added regularly
What we ship
- Docker image:
stirlingtools/stirling-pdf:latest - Persistent volumes:
/opt/stirlingpdf/{trainingData,extraConfigs,customFiles,logs,pipeline} - 6 language packs pre-installed (en, it, fr, de, es)
- Port 8090 exposed
- Auth disabled by default (configurable via env)
- HTTPS via Let's Encrypt reverse proxy
- Backup hook covers customFiles + extraConfigs
// Tips & operations
Run it properly.
Operational guidance from running this in production — what to lock down, what surprises people.
// PERFORMANCE
OCR languages opt-in
enable via env to avoid downloading 4GB of language packs
// SECURITY
Authentication off by default
enable DOCKER_ENABLE_SECURITY=true for production
// OPERATIONS
Memory-heavy ops
large PDF OCR can spike RAM; size VPS accordingly
// RELIABILITY
Persist logs
useful for troubleshooting failed operations
// DEPLOYMENT
Custom branding
/customFiles mount for white-label deploys
// SCALING
Pipeline mode
for batch operations, define pipeline.json
1024
// min ram (MB)
4
// min disk (GB)
8090
// access port
http
// protocol
pro
// bluixapps tier
Project resources
Official sitestirlingpdf.com ↗