Stirling PDF: Self-Hosted PDF Toolkit

Stirling PDF is a self-hosted web application for performing a wide range of operations on PDF files. With over 74,000 GitHub stars, it has become the leading open-source PDF toolkit. Stirling PDF handles merging, splitting, converting, compressing, signing, watermarking, and dozens of other PDF operations — all through a clean web interface without uploading your documents to external services.

Self-hosting Stirling PDF means your sensitive documents never leave your server.

Key Features

• Merge, split, rotate, and reorder PDF pages through a drag-and-drop interface
• Convert between PDF and formats like images, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and HTML
• Compress PDFs to reduce file size with configurable quality settings
• Add or remove passwords and encryption from PDF files
• Digital signature support for signing PDFs with certificates
• OCR (optical character recognition) for making scanned PDFs searchable
• Watermark and stamp tools for branding and document marking
• Multi-page editing with page extraction, insertion, and deletion

Why Self-Host Stirling PDF?

Document privacy guaranteed. Online PDF tools require you to upload documents to their servers. For legal contracts, financial reports, medical records, or confidential business documents, this is a serious security risk. Stirling PDF processes everything locally on your server — your files never leave your infrastructure.

No file size limits or daily caps. Free online PDF tools restrict file sizes and limit the number of operations per day. Self-hosted Stirling PDF has no such restrictions. Process 500-page documents, batch convert entire folders, and run unlimited operations.

No ads or upselling. Online PDF services bombard you with ads, premium tier upsells, and dark patterns. Stirling PDF is completely ad-free with every feature available at no cost. The interface is clean and focused on getting work done.

Team-wide access. Deploy once and your entire team has access to professional PDF tools through a shared URL. No need for individual software licenses or desktop PDF applications. Add authentication to control access.

System Requirements

Resource	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	1 vCPU	2 vCPUs
RAM	1 GB	2 GB
Storage	5 GB SSD	10 GB SSD
OS	Ubuntu 22.04+	Ubuntu 24.04

Stirling PDF uses Java and LibreOffice under the hood for format conversions. OCR processing is CPU-intensive for large documents. The recommended specs handle typical document processing workloads comfortably.

Getting Started

Deploy Stirling PDF on your VPS using Docker Compose through Dokploy. Our deployment guide covers the full setup including OCR language packs, persistent storage, and SSL configuration.

Deploy Stirling PDF with Dokploy →

Alternatives

• Paperless-ngx — Self-hosted document management system with OCR and automatic tagging
• ONLYOFFICE — Office suite with PDF editing capabilities and document collaboration
• LibreOffice Online — Browser-based office suite with PDF import and export
• OCRmyPDF — Command-line tool for adding OCR layers to PDF files

FAQ

What PDF operations does Stirling PDF support? Stirling PDF supports 50+ operations including merge, split, rotate, compress, convert (to/from Word, Excel, images), OCR, password protection, digital signatures, watermarks, page extraction, metadata editing, and form filling.

Does Stirling PDF handle large files? Yes. Since it runs on your server, the only limit is your server's available memory and disk space. Multi-hundred-page documents process successfully with the recommended specs. For very large batch operations, increase RAM allocation.

Can multiple users access Stirling PDF simultaneously? Yes. Stirling PDF includes an optional authentication system with user accounts. Multiple users can process documents concurrently — each operation runs independently on the server.

Does Stirling PDF require an internet connection? No. Once deployed, Stirling PDF runs entirely offline. All processing happens locally using embedded libraries. This makes it suitable for air-gapped environments or servers without internet access.

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App data sourced from selfh.st open-source directory.