Free alternative
Free alternative to iLovePDF Premium
iLovePDF Premium costs €9 a month. Stirling PDF does the same job for free, in open source: you install it on your machine or a small server, and you stop paying.
Public entry price, taken from iLovePDF Premium’s website (ilovepdf.com). Over a year, that is €108 that stays in your pocket.
What replaces iLovePDF Premium
The main alternative
Stirling PDF
Stirling PDF is iLovePDF without the account, the ads or the cap, on your own server or even on your computer. You open a web page and you get 60+ tools: merge, split, reorder, compress, convert both ways (Word, images, HTML, PDF/A), sign, fill forms, watermark, redact, password-protect, extract images, and OCR to make a scan searchable. There are even pipelines to chain several operations on a whole folder. Everything runs in a single Docker container, the file stays on your machine from start to finish. It is the most followed PDF project on GitHub, 92,000+ stars and 30 million downloads. The core is MIT licensed; the enterprise-only parts (SSO login, audit logs) sit in a Team plan at €99 a month, which you do not need for yourself or a small team.
Loucash’s verdict on Stirling PDF
9/10
If you pay for iLovePDF, you pay to lift artificial limits on operations your computer does perfectly well on its own. Stirling PDF gives you all of it back, no account, no ads, no cap, and your documents never leave your machine. For client or admin paperwork, that is the part that matters. What I like: the breadth of it. 60+ tools, built-in OCR, pipelines to process a whole folder, and a huge project behind it, 92,000 stars and weekly updates. The install fits in one command. What may bite: the interface is dense, you will not use it fully on day one. And there is a company behind it with an enterprise offer; the core stays MIT licensed, but keep an eye on what moves to the paid side. For a freelancer, nothing that matters is locked today.
Who it is for: You handle PDFs every week (quotes, invoices, scans, client files) and you want neither to pay nor to send those files to a third party.
Stirling PDF versus iLovePDF Premium: the match
Price
Stirling PDF
€0, on your server or your computer
iLovePDF Premium
€9 a month, €60 yearly
Where your files go
Stirling PDF
Nowhere, they stay with you
iLovePDF Premium
To their servers, for the processing
File size and count
Stirling PDF
No cap, it is your machine
iLovePDF Premium
Unlimited on Premium, capped on free
| VS | Stirling PDF | iLovePDF Premium ↗ |
|---|---|---|
| Price | €0, on your server or your computer | €9 a month, €60 yearly |
| Where your files go | Nowhere, they stay with you | To their servers, for the processing |
| File size and count | No cap, it is your machine | Unlimited on Premium, capped on free |
| OCR | Included, several languages | Premium only |
| Signatures | No limit | 5 a month on Premium |
| Automating a whole folder | Pipelines and API included | Separate paid API |
The prompt that installs Stirling PDF
Paste this prompt into Claude: it checks the repository, asks you its questions and installs the tool step by step.
Installe Stirling PDF sur ma machine (la boîte à outils PDF open source, repo GitHub Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF) avec Docker, en suivant la doc officielle docs.stirlingpdf.com. Pars de zéro : vérifie que Docker est installé, sinon installe-le. Crée un dossier stirling-pdf avec un docker-compose.yml qui lance l'image docker.stirlingpdf.com/stirlingtools/stirling-pdf:latest sur le port 8080, avec des volumes pour ./stirling-data/configs, ./stirling-data/tessdata, ./stirling-data/logs et ./stirling-data/pipeline, la variable SYSTEM_DEFAULTLOCALE=fr-FR et restart unless-stopped. Si c'est mon ordinateur personnel, mets SECURITY_ENABLELOGIN=false et ouvre http://localhost:8080. Si c'est un serveur exposé sur internet, garde la connexion activée, change tout de suite le mot de passe du compte admin (identifiants par défaut admin et stirling) et mets un reverse proxy Caddy devant qui sert mon nom de domaine en HTTPS avec un certificat automatique, sans publier le port 8080. Vérifie en fusionnant deux PDF de test. Explique chaque étape simplement, je débute. Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Stirling PDF really free?
- Yes. Stirling PDF is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. iLovePDF Premium, on the other hand, costs €9 a month.
- Do I need to code to install Stirling PDF?
- No. The level is beginner and the install takes about 10 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.
- How is it different from iLovePDF Premium?
- Stirling PDF does most of what iLovePDF Premium does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.
- Do I own my data?
- Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.
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