head to head · open source
PyMuPDF vs anymd
PyMuPDF has 10,786 GitHub stars, 805 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped yesterday. anymd has 939 stars, 83 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PyMuPDF leads on adoption by 1,049% (10,786 vs 939 stars). PyMuPDF is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; anymd is written in Rust under MIT. PyMuPDF has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, anymd 9%. anymd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (epub, ocr, pdf), 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
| PyMuPDF | anymd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 939 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-26 | 2026-09-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 805 | ⑂ 83 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick PyMuPDF if
- You weight community size — 11K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick anymd if
- You want the anymd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and anymd fits your workflow better
About PyMuPDF
PyMuPDF is a high performance Python library, built on the MuPDF C engine, for extracting, analysing, converting, rendering and manipulating PDF and other documents, aimed at Python developers building data extraction, document processing and AI retrieval pipelines.
read the full PyMuPDF overview →
About anymd
anymd is an open source Rust MCP server and command line tool that converts PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint decks, Excel workbooks, EPUB files, HTML and web pages, images, audio and video into clean Markdown for AI agents, running on the user's own machine with no API key.
read the full anymd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is PyMuPDF or anymd more popular?
PyMuPDF has 10,786 GitHub stars and anymd has 939. PyMuPDF has the larger community by that measure.
Are PyMuPDF and anymd free?
Both are open source. PyMuPDF is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and anymd under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PyMuPDF and anymd?
PyMuPDF is written in Python and anymd in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, PyMuPDF or anymd?
Choose PyMuPDF if you want the larger community (10,786 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose anymd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.