Best iLovePDF Alternatives in 2026: the buyer's shortlist

ToAny is a browser-based file tool made by TheRu Studio in Sydney. Among iLovePDF alternatives it is the narrowest, and the most private. Its PDF tools page lists 10 tools: merge, split, delete pages, rotate, unlock, protect, reorder pages, add page numbers, add a watermark and flatten forms. Compress PDF is a separate tool.

All of them run in your browser. The file is not sent to ToAny. The only data ToAny receives is an anonymous count of the format pair, with no file name, size or content. You can check this in your browser's Network panel.

It is free, with no account, no email and no daily limit. Limits come from your device. Merge takes up to 100 files, split makes up to 1,000 pieces, and one run can take 300 MB of input on desktop or 100 MB on a touch device. Compress accepts PDFs up to 400 MiB.

ToAny does fall short of iLovePDF in places. It has no OCR, no text editing and no signing, and it does not change the text inside a PDF. It has 10 PDF tools plus compress, against 30+ at Sejda and Smallpdf and 60+ at Stirling-PDF. It has no API and no mobile or desktop app.

PDF to Word is also a weak spot. That route is in beta, runs on ToAny's server and comes out as positioned text boxes, so it is readable but hard to edit. Separately, 16 pairs run on ToAny's server, only for some Office and e-book formats and only after you consent to each upload. No PDF tool and no compress run uses it.

PDF24 is made by geek software GmbH in Berlin and was founded in 2006. The about page says millions of people use it and credits Stefan Ziegler as the driving force behind the project, though it does not name founders.

The price is free. PDF24 Creator, the desktop app, is free, and we found no paid plan on the pages we read. The cost is advertising: the Creator page carries Advertisement labels, and whether the installed app shows ads is not stated.

The tool list is broad. It includes Protect PDF, Unlock PDF, Compress, Merge, Split, Sign, Edit, OCR, Redact and Compare. That puts it ahead of ToAny on editing, OCR and signing, and its tool list names all three.

Where your file goes depends on how you use it. The web tools upload to servers in the EU. The privacy policy says uploads are usually deleted one hour after upload or result creation. An optional AI invoice recognition feature is an exception that the policy describes separately.

PDF24 Creator runs on your PC and works offline, but it is Windows only. On a Mac, on Linux or on a phone you are left with the web tools and therefore the upload. The Creator page says it can be used without any restrictions, while limits on the web tools are not stated.

In our sources PDF24 has no Mac or mobile app. On the web version it is also less private than ToAny, because the file is uploaded and usually deleted only after an hour.

Stirling PDF is the widest toolkit on this list. Its pricing page says the free plan includes 60+ PDF tools and 1,000 monthly credits for automating PDF work. The free plan costs $0 a month with no card required.

It can run in three places: on the web, as a desktop app or self-hosted on your own servers. The homepage says the editor runs on the user's machine and that the source is public. Self-hosting is the option to pick if your files must stay inside your own network.

It leans hardest towards developers and IT teams. Every PDF operation can be called from your own systems through APIs and MCP, with webhooks and pipelines. ToAny has no API at all, so this is a real gap.

The Team plan costs $99 a month and includes 100 users, SSO and a team workspace. Extra capacity is added in blocks of 100 users, and the page shows no yearly price. A PDF Processor option costs 1 cent per credit, prepaid or as you go. Enterprise is quote only.

The project claims 31M downloads and says it is used by 75% of the Fortune 500, which is a self-reported figure. The GitHub repository has 94,352 stars. GitHub lists the licence as NOASSERTION, which means GitHub could not identify a standard licence, even though the site markets the product as open source.

For one-off jobs it is more than you need. The breadth is the point, and the setup for self-hosting takes more work than opening a web page.

Sejda is a PDF suite from Sejda BV in Amsterdam, founded in 2010 as an open source project. Its about page claims 30+ PDF tools, and it offers both a web version and a desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux.

The split matters for privacy. The desktop app processes files on your computer and works offline. The web version uploads files to Sejda's servers, then deletes the uploaded and processed files after processing, with no backups. The desktop app does contact Sejda's servers for licensing and update checks.

The free tier depends on which you use. The desktop app is free for 3 tasks a day, with documents up to 50 MB and 200 pages, compress up to 100 MB and OCR up to 10 pages. The web version is forever free with no signup, but with page and hourly limits that the page does not quantify.

Paid plans are priced in AUD for the location we fetched from. Desktop plus web is A$99 per user per year, and web only is A$12.50 per user per month. A Web Week Pass costs A$8 for 7 days. There is no perpetual licence.

Paid web plans lift the page and hourly limits, allow OCR up to 100 pages and accept uploads up to 500 MB per file. Sejda lists OCR, which ToAny does not offer.

The vendor claims 4.5 from 1,874 Google reviews on its own homepage. We did not check that on Google. Compared with ToAny, Sejda lists 30+ tools against ToAny's 10 and runs offline, but its free desktop cap of 3 tasks a day would bind quickly on a busy day.

PDFgear is a free PDF suite from PDF GEAR TECH PTE. LTD. in Singapore. The first version was released in 2022. The homepage presents it as completely free, and its structured data lists a price of 0 USD.

It covers more platforms than most free tools here: Windows, Mac, iPhone and iPad on the homepage, with Android and a Chrome extension in the stores. The online tools hub advertises 30+ tools for editing PDFs. The vendor states it does not display ads.

Processing varies by tool. The online Unlock PDF tool runs in the browser with no upload, no watermark, no signup and no limit on size, number or page count. The online Compress PDF tool uploads to Amazon cloud servers in the US and deletes files 20 minutes after they leave the site.

Ratings are numerous but come from several places. The homepage claims 4.9 from 10,000+ reviews without naming the source. The iOS app shows 4.7 from 8,842 ratings, and Google Play shows 4.7 stars from 48.7K reviews with 1M+ downloads.

The free offer may not last. The vendor says charging for advanced features is under consideration, with no timeline, and its 2025 milestone mentions some features shifting to paid options. Check the current pages before you rely on it.

Against ToAny, PDFgear gives you apps on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, which ToAny lacks. ToAny keeps every PDF tool and compress in the browser, while PDFgear's compress uploads your file.

Smallpdf is the closest like-for-like rival to iLovePDF: a hosted toolkit with a free tier and a paid plan. It was founded in 2013 in Switzerland, and the company is Smallpdf AG, with teams in Zurich and Belgrade.

Its about page claims 40+ million monthly users, 100+ million monthly tasks, 24 languages and 195 countries. The pricing page lists 30+ document management tools. Those are vendor claims, and the page counts differ between pages.

Files are uploaded. Smallpdf's servers are in Ireland, and files from free tools are deleted after one hour. The company states ISO/IEC 27001 certification and compliance with GDPR, CCPA and nFADP.

The free plan allows limited document downloads, with a daily download limit on most tools. The exact daily number is not shown on the pages we read. Pro adds Strong Compression, Edit Text and OCR, so text editing and OCR sit behind the paywall. There is a 7-day free trial, and the yearly plan is stated to be 25% cheaper per month than monthly. We could not read the absolute prices.

Trustpilot shows 4.8, labelled Excellent, from 5,278 reviews.

Like iLovePDF, it trades upload and daily limits for a wide hosted toolset. Against ToAny, Smallpdf offers editing and OCR on Pro and has apps, but the file leaves your device and the free tier has a daily cap.

Foxit PDF Editor is a paid editor for Windows, macOS and the web, with mobile apps only in the PDF Editor+ plan. Foxit says it launched in California in 2001. It is not a quick-fix tool. It is software you buy for a team.

Prices are listed in US dollars. PDF Editor costs $129.99 per user per year and PDF Editor+ $159.99 per user per year. Monthly billing is available from $10.99, but the page does not say which plan that covers. A one-time licence for Foxit PDF Editor 14 costs $209.99 per user.

There is no free tier for the editor. You get a 14-day free trial with no credit card. A separate free Foxit PDF Reader exists, but it is a reader.

The company claims 700M+ users and 660,000+ organisations. Its logo wall includes Amazon, JPMorganChase, Intel, NASDAQ, HP, Dell, Lenovo and Hilton. Those are company claims. Foxit also states SOC 2, HIPAA-ready, GDPR-supported and Section 508 compliance.

AI features come with credits. Foxit offers 300 free AI credits a month, and a paid add-on costs $49.99 per year for 2,000 credits a month. Password protection is listed as a feature of the editor.

We could not find where Foxit's web version processes files, so we do not state it. The editor suits staff who edit PDFs all day. It is poor value for someone who needs to merge two files.

PDFelement is the PDF editor from Wondershare, whose parent company was founded in 2003. It is available on desktop, iOS, Android and the web.

Pricing on the default store block is in US dollars. The Yearly Plan is US$79.99 a year for a single platform or US$89.99 a year cross-platform. A 2-Year Plan costs US$119.99 cross-platform, and the Perpetual Plan is a one-time US$139.99 cross-platform or US$129.99 single-platform. These are promotional V13 prices.

The free route is a trial. A registered 14-day trial covers nearly all features, with no credit card, but saved files get a watermark. Paid plans do not watermark.

The free online tools are limited. Online merge allows files up to 100MB, with no reordering or preview, and is meant for 1 to 5 files. Online split handles a batch of up to 3 files and splits only by pages and page ranges. Online files are uploaded, and those sent to the split tool are erased within 7 days. The desktop app processes files locally.

PDFelement lists OCR, which supports 26 languages including right-to-left scripts. The vendor shows a G2 rating of 4.5 out of 5 on its homepage. We did not read the G2 page, so the review count is unknown.

Wondershare claims 2 billion+ people across 200+ countries, but that is group-wide and not specific to PDFelement. Its online split tool erases uploads within 7 days, against one to two hours at iLovePDF, PDF24 and Smallpdf.