Stirlingpdf

App in the BluixApps catalog

What it is

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.

What it's for

  • PDF manipulation — merge, split, rotate, reorder, crop
  • 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

  • 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

Why teams pick Stirling-PDF over 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

  • 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)

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

Tips & operations

  • OCR languages opt-in — enable via env to avoid downloading 4GB of language packs
  • Authentication off by default — enable DOCKER_ENABLE_SECURITY=true for production
  • Memory-heavy ops — large PDF OCR can spike RAM; size VPS accordingly
  • Persist logs — useful for troubleshooting failed operations
  • Custom branding/customFiles mount for white-label deploys
  • Pipeline mode — for batch operations, define pipeline.json

What we ship in BluixApps

  • 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
Read this app's deep dive on bluix.app ↗

Get this app — pick a BluixApps plan

Same catalog. Scaling tenant isolation, white-label and support tier.

TierTenantsCatalogSupportWhite-labelMonthly
Stacks119 curated stacksStandard$19/moDetailDeploy
Starter10Full catalogStandard+$15–25/mo$49/moDetailDeploy
Pro25Full catalogPriority bugfix+$15–25/mo$149/moDetailDeploy
Growth100Full catalogPriority bugfix+$15–25/mo$349/moDetailDeploy
Scale500Full catalog7-day window+$15–25/mo$799/moDetailDeploy
EnterpriseUnlimitedFull catalogPriority 7-dayBundled$1,499/moDetailDeploy

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