head to head · open source
bento vs KillerPDF
bento has 5,599 GitHub stars, 388 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped yesterday. KillerPDF has 4,289 stars, 342 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped yesterday. bento leads on adoption by 31% (5,599 vs 4,289 stars). bento is written in TypeScript under MIT; KillerPDF is written in C# under GPL-3.0. bento has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, KillerPDF 8%. bento was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (open-source), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| bento | KillerPDF | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.6K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 388 | ⑂ 342 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick bento if
- You weight community size — 5.6K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick KillerPDF if
- You want the KillerPDF feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and KillerPDF fits your workflow better
About bento
Bento — the office suite that fits in a file This PowerPoint alternative is a single HTML file. A Bento deck carries its own viewer, presenter, and editor inside the document — open it in any browser, edit it, present it, send it. The person you send it to needs nothing: the file is the software. Try it in 10 seconds: open bento.page/slides — that's the entire app, running on a starter deck that doubles as the feature tour. Or grab a designed template from the gallery and make it yours. Download the app: grab the single Bento Slides.bento.html from the GitHub Releases page or straight from bento.page ( 560 KB…
read the full bento overview →
About KillerPDF
KillerPDF is a free, open source PDF editor for Windows. View, annotate, OCR, merge, split, edit text, draw, sign, fill forms, print, flatten, and open password protected PDFs without an Adobe subscription. Choose the compact Windows installer or the self contained portable edition. Document processing stays on your computer, with no telemetry. Full how tos live on the help page; internals, formats, and limits on the technical page. The KillerPDF.Engine KillerPDF 1.8 introduces The KillerPDF.Engine, an independent and reusable .NET library for PDF 2.0, PDF/A, and PDF/UA document processing. It is a first class…
read the full KillerPDF overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bento or KillerPDF more popular?
bento has 5,599 GitHub stars and KillerPDF has 4,289. bento has the larger community by that measure.
Are bento and KillerPDF free?
Both are open source. bento is licensed under MIT and KillerPDF under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between bento and KillerPDF?
bento is written in TypeScript and KillerPDF in C#. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, bento or KillerPDF?
Choose bento if you want the larger community (5,599 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose KillerPDF if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.