head to head · open source
wordcraft vs KillerPDF
wordcraft has 5,339 GitHub stars, 1,605 forks, 331 open issues and last shipped yesterday. KillerPDF has 4,079 stars, 325 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. wordcraft leads on adoption by 31% (5,339 vs 4,079 stars). wordcraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; KillerPDF is written in C# under GPL-3.0. wordcraft has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, KillerPDF 8%. wordcraft 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
| wordcraft | KillerPDF | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.3K | ★ 4.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | C# |
| Last push | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 325 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick wordcraft if
- You weight community size — 5.3K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick KillerPDF if
- You want the KillerPDF feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and KillerPDF fits your workflow better
About wordcraft
WordCraft is an open source, clean room reimplementation of Microsoft Word written in pure Rust, aimed at people who want the familiar Word document workflow — ribbon, styles, track changes, references — as a native, offline application they can run themselves.
read the full wordcraft overview →
About KillerPDF
KillerPDF is a free, open source PDF editor for Windows, built in C under the GPL 3.0 licence, that gives individuals and teams a complete view annotate OCR edit sign workflow without an Adobe subscription and without sending document processing off the machine.
read the full KillerPDF overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wordcraft or KillerPDF more popular?
wordcraft has 5,339 GitHub stars and KillerPDF has 4,079. wordcraft has the larger community by that measure.
Are wordcraft and KillerPDF free?
Both are open source. wordcraft is licensed under Apache-2.0 and KillerPDF under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wordcraft and KillerPDF?
wordcraft is written in Rust and KillerPDF in C#. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, wordcraft or KillerPDF?
Choose wordcraft if you want the larger community (5,339 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose KillerPDF if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.