head to head · open source
pdfcpu vs pdfx
pdfcpu has 8,895 GitHub stars, 644 forks, 121 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pdfx has 1,088 stars, 126 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. pdfcpu leads on adoption by 718% (8,895 vs 1,088 stars). pdfcpu is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pdfx is written in TypeScript under MIT. pdfcpu has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, pdfx 12%. pdfcpu was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (pdf, pdf-tools), 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
| pdfcpu | pdfx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 644 | ⑂ 126 |
| 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 pdfx if
- You want the pdfx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and pdfx 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 pdfx
PDFx One file. Many documents. Still a PDF. What it is PDFx is an open, backwards compatible extension of PDF that bundles many documents into a single file, plus a minimal desktop viewer for macOS, Windows, and Linux. The files produced are fully valid PDFs: open them anywhere and every page shows in sequence. Open them in PDFx and it splits back into the original documents. Plain single PDFs work as they are. Drag and drop .pdf files, images or folders anywhere in the window. Each document renders as a horizontal strip of pages, and documents stack vertically. Reorder or remove them, then Export PDF to save…
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Frequently asked questions
Is pdfcpu or pdfx more popular?
pdfcpu has 8,895 GitHub stars and pdfx has 1,088. pdfcpu has the larger community by that measure.
Are pdfcpu and pdfx free?
Both are open source. pdfcpu is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pdfx under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pdfcpu and pdfx?
pdfcpu is written in Go and pdfx 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, pdfcpu or pdfx?
Choose pdfcpu if you want the larger community (8,895 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pdfx if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.