head to head · open source
pdfcpu vs organize
pdfcpu has 8,895 GitHub stars, 644 forks, 121 open issues and last shipped yesterday. organize has 3,180 stars, 196 forks, 77 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. pdfcpu leads on adoption by 180% (8,895 vs 3,180 stars). pdfcpu is written in Go under Apache-2.0; organize is written in Python under MIT. pdfcpu has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, organize 6%. pdfcpu was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| pdfcpu | organize | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 644 | ⑂ 196 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pdfcpu if
- You weight community size — 8.9K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick organize if
- You want the organize feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and organize fits your workflow better
About pdfcpu
pdfcpu: PDF tooling for Go and the command line pdfcpu is a PDF processing library and command line tool written in Go. It supports validation, optimization, encryption, signing, document assembly, content extraction, and other common PDF operations. pdfcpu supports PDF versions through PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000 2). PDF 2.0 validation support is basic and continuously improving. Horst Rutter, the maintainer of pdfcpu, is a member of the PDF Association. Installation Usage CLI Validate a PDF: Merge two PDFs: Go API See API documentation for usage examples. Features Validate, optimize, split, trim, and merge PDFs Extract…
read the full pdfcpu overview →
About organize
organize The file management automation tool Full documentation at Read the docs v3 is now available The new version should be much faster and fix a lot of bugs. It also comes with a some new actions, filters and options. If you encounter any other bugs or problems during the migration, please reach out! See the changelog Migration guide About Your desktop is a mess? You cannot find anything in your downloads and documents? Sorting and renaming all these files by hand is too tedious? Time to automate it once and benefit from it forever. organize is a command line, open source alternative to apps like Hazel…
read the full organize overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pdfcpu or organize more popular?
pdfcpu has 8,895 GitHub stars and organize has 3,180. pdfcpu has the larger community by that measure.
Are pdfcpu and organize free?
Both are open source. pdfcpu is licensed under Apache-2.0 and organize under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pdfcpu and organize?
pdfcpu is written in Go and organize in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, pdfcpu or organize?
Choose pdfcpu if you want the larger community (8,895 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose organize if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.