head to head · open source
KillerPDF vs yft-design
KillerPDF has 4,289 GitHub stars, 342 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped yesterday. yft-design has 1,671 stars, 337 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. KillerPDF leads on adoption by 157% (4,289 vs 1,671 stars). KillerPDF is written in C# under GPL-3.0; yft-design is written in TypeScript under MIT. KillerPDF has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, yft-design 20%. KillerPDF was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (pdf-editor), 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
| KillerPDF | yft-design | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.3K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | C# | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 342 | ⑂ 337 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick KillerPDF if
- You weight community size — 4.3K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick yft-design if
- You want the yft-design feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and yft-design fits your workflow better
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 →
About yft-design
yft design 1，一款美观且功能强大的在线设计工具，具备海报设计和图片编辑功能，基于Canvas的开源版【稿定设计】。适用于多种场景，如海报生成、电商产品图制作、文章长图设计、视频/公众号封面编辑等。 2，适配稿定设计pdf还原，支持导入psd还原 3，可导出图片，svg，pdf 📞 联系我们 🌐 在线体验 💬 联系方式 🚀 开发状态 介绍文章 介绍视频 psd解析 pdf解析 psd解析 pdf解析 🚀 项目运行 📖 项目结构 📚 功能列表 基础功能 历史记录（撤销、重做） 快捷键 右键菜单 导入PDF(完美还原格式，不支持图片裁切导入) 导入PSD(完美还原格式，支持部分特效还原，亮度，对比度，颜色覆盖) 导入SVG(不支持tspan字体) 导出本地文件（SVG、图片、PDF） 页面编辑 页面添加、删除 页面顺序调整 页面复制粘贴(TODO) 背景设置（纯色、渐变、图片） 设置画布尺寸 网格线(TODO) 标尺 画布缩放、移动 页面模板 选择面板（隐藏元素、层级排序、元素命名）(TODO) 元素编辑 元素添加、删除 元素复制粘贴 元素拖拽移动 元素旋转 元素缩放 元素多选（框选、点选） 多元素组合 多元素批量编辑(TODO) 元素锁定(TODO) 元素吸附对齐（移动和缩放） 元素层级调整 元素对齐到画布 元素坐标、尺寸和旋转角度设置 文字
read the full yft-design overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is KillerPDF or yft-design more popular?
KillerPDF has 4,289 GitHub stars and yft-design has 1,671. KillerPDF has the larger community by that measure.
Are KillerPDF and yft-design free?
Both are open source. KillerPDF is licensed under GPL-3.0 and yft-design under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between KillerPDF and yft-design?
KillerPDF is written in C# and yft-design in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, KillerPDF or yft-design?
Choose KillerPDF if you want the larger community (4,289 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose yft-design if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.