head to head · open source
pdfcpu vs Wraft
pdfcpu has 8,895 GitHub stars, 644 forks, 121 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Wraft has 167 stars, 31 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. pdfcpu leads on adoption by 5,226% (8,895 vs 167 stars). pdfcpu is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Wraft is written in Elixir under AGPL-3.0. pdfcpu has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Wraft 19%. 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 | Wraft | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 167 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Elixir |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 644 | ⑂ 31 |
| 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 Wraft if
- You want the Wraft feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You evaluated both and Wraft 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 Wraft
The open source Document Lifecycle Management platform. Website • Releases • Discord • Documentation Wraft Document Lifecycle Management Wraft is an open source content authoring platform that's helps businesses produce their most important set of documents. Wraft helps author structured business content. From official letters to contracts, and beyond. Our goal is to give people complete control over their most important documents, from drafting to collaborating and distributing. Wraft is built on top of open formats, using markdown and JSON. This means your content is always accessible and future proof…
read the full Wraft overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pdfcpu or Wraft more popular?
pdfcpu has 8,895 GitHub stars and Wraft has 167. pdfcpu has the larger community by that measure.
Are pdfcpu and Wraft free?
Both are open source. pdfcpu is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Wraft under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pdfcpu and Wraft?
pdfcpu is written in Go and Wraft in Elixir. 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 Wraft?
Choose pdfcpu if you want the larger community (8,895 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Wraft if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.