#1 PDF Application on GitHub that lets you edit PDFs on any device anywhere

Stirling PDF - The Open-Source PDF Platform

Stirling PDF is a powerful, open-source PDF editing platform. Run it as a personal desktop app, in the browser, or deploy it on your own servers with a private API. Edit, sign, redact, convert, and automate PDFs without sending documents to external services.

Key Capabilities

• Everywhere you work - Desktop client, browser UI, and self-hosted server with a private API.
• 50+ PDF tools - Edit, merge, split, sign, redact, convert, OCR, compress, and more.
• Automation & workflows - No-code pipelines direct in UI with APIs to process millions of PDFs.
• Enterprise‑grade - SSO, auditing, and flexible on‑prem deployments.
• Developer platform - REST APIs available for nearly all tools to integrate into your existing systems.
• Global UI - Interface available in 40+ languages.

For a full feature list, see the docs: https://docs.stirlingpdf.com

Quick Start

docker run -p 8080:8080 docker.stirlingpdf.com/stirlingtools/stirling-pdf

Then open: http://localhost:8080

For full installation options (including desktop and Kubernetes), see our Documentation Guide.

Resources

• Documentation
• Homepage
• API Docs
• Server Plan & Enterprise

Support

• Community Discord
• Bug Reports: Github issues

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

This project uses Task as a unified command runner for all build, dev, and test commands. Run task install to get started, or see the Developer Guide for full details.

For adding translations, see the Translation Guide.

License

Stirling PDF is open-core. See LICENSE for details.