Best PDF Mergers in 2026: the buyer's shortlist

ToAny's Merge PDF tool joins PDFs inside your browser tab. The files are read from your device, merged there and saved back. Their contents, names and sizes are not sent to ToAny. You can confirm that in the browser's Network panel.

Add up to 100 files, drag them into order or use the arrows, and press merge. It is free, with no account and no email address.

The limits are real and you should know them. A run accepts 300 MB of input in total on a desktop browser and 100 MB on touch devices. PDFsam states no limit, so for very large merges it wins. ToAny is also web-only: there is no desktop or mobile app, no offline mode, no API and no import from Google Drive or Dropbox.

Speed depends on your device, because the work is done in your browser's memory rather than by a server farm. A phone has less memory than a laptop, so its limit is lower. One more weakness: the result keeps the first file's bookmarks and form fields, and later files lose theirs.

On privacy, be precise. Browser conversions never send the file. A small number of document pairs (16 of 1,195) run on ToAny's own server, but only after you consent for that upload, and no PDF tool uses it. Merging stays in the browser.

There is no Pro tier, so there is nothing to upgrade to. The PDF tools hub lists nine other tools, including split and reorder. PDF compress is a separate tool.

iLovePDF is a hosted PDF suite based in Barcelona. It has provided online PDF tools since 2010, and its merge tool is the first card on the home page.

The free limits for merging, per its pricing page, are 25 files and 100 MB per task. Premium raises that to 500 files, and to 4 GB for most tools. That free allowance is generous next to Soda PDF, though ToAny allows 100 files.

The files are uploaded and processed on iLovePDF's servers. The company says files are automatically and permanently deleted within two hours of processing. It holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification and says it is fully GDPR compliant.

Premium costs 11 AUD per month billed monthly, or 84 AUD billed annually, which the page shows as 7 AUD per month. The page appeared to be priced by region, and we did not verify a USD figure. The free plan shows ads, and removing them is a Premium benefit.

iLovePDF beats ToAny on reach. It has desktop apps for Mac and Windows, mobile apps for iOS and Android, an API called iLoveAPI, and integrations such as Zapier and Make. ToAny has none of these.

The site reports a 4.9 average rating on Trustpilot, which is self-reported on its own pricing page, and 16.5 million documents processed every day. We could not read Trustpilot itself, so treat both figures as the vendor's claims.

Smallpdf is a Swiss PDF suite, made in Switzerland in 2013 with a single tool to compress PDFs. It now offers 30 or more document tools, merging among them, on the web, desktop and mobile.

Merging happens on its servers. Free-tool files are deleted after one hour, it says, which is the shortest retention among the hosted tools here. Its servers are in Ireland, and it states ISO/IEC 27001 certification and GDPR, CCPA and nFADP compliance.

The free plan is limited by a daily download limit on most tools, and you wait 24 hours for it to reset. We could not find the exact daily number or a per-merge file count, so both are "Not stated" in our table. That makes it harder to plan a big merge than with iLovePDF, which publishes its numbers.

Pricing is the other gap. Smallpdf offers a 7-day free trial, and says the yearly plan is 25% cheaper per month than monthly. The absolute prices were not readable in the page source, so we do not quote one.

Its scale claims are large: 40 million or more monthly users and 24 languages, according to its about page. On Trustpilot it shows 4.8 from 5,278 reviews. Adobe's company-wide count of 7,540 is higher.

Compared with ToAny, Smallpdf gives you apps and a wider tool set, but it uploads your file and caps free use. ToAny has no daily cap, though it has no apps.

Adobe's online merge tool sits beside its Acrobat desktop software. Adobe was founded in December 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke and is based in San Jose, California.

The online merge page states a limit of 100 files, each up to 500 pages. That is the same file count as ToAny and a page limit instead of a size limit. Adobe's online tools run on its servers, and files are deleted unless you sign in to save them, according to its compress page. No retention period is stated.

Free use is limited, with no number stated. Adobe says its free tools number 25 or more. Acrobat Reader is free, and the paid Acrobat plans are priced as below.

Acrobat Standard is US$14.99 per month on an annual plan billed monthly, or US$179.88 prepaid for the year. On a monthly plan it is US$24.99 per month. Pro is US$29.99 per month on the monthly plan and US$239.88 a year prepaid, and Studio is US$34.99 per month. Acrobat Pro has a 7-day free trial.

What you buy at those prices is a full desktop editor, not just a merger: editing, signing and much else. That is a good deal if you need those features and poor value if you only need to join files.

On reputation, Adobe's Trustpilot score is 1.1 out of 5 across 7,540 reviews. That score covers the whole company, not Acrobat alone, so it says little about the merge tool.

PDFsam Basic is a free, open-source desktop app for merging, splitting, rotating, mixing and extracting pages. It has been developed since 2006 and is published by the legal entity Sober Lemur S.r.l. under the AGPL licence.

It beats ToAny on two points. Its FAQ states no limit on file size, and it works offline. Both follow from the design: it runs on your computer, so there is no upload, no daily cap and no watermark.

Processing is local, and its privacy policy says PDFsam Basic collects nothing. It is free for company use and needs no sign-up.

The costs are practical. You must download and install it, and it is a desktop app only for Windows, macOS and Linux, with no browser version. It is 64-bit only and needs about 70 MB of disk and 256 MB of RAM. It cannot help on a phone or on a work laptop where you cannot install software.

It is also less polished for a one-off job. Installing an app to merge two files takes longer than dropping them on a web page, which is the gap ToAny fills.

The GitHub repository had 4,629 stars when we read it on 17 October 2026. The app is powered by the open-source Sejda SDK, which has a command line interface for scripting. No API is stated for Basic.

Soda PDF is a PDF suite sold by Avanquest Software under the Soda name. Soda is a registered trademark of Avanquest Software. The site offers online quick tools, and it claims more than 425,000 users, which is the vendor's own figure.

Its online merge page says files are deleted from its servers within 24 hours. The files are uploaded and encrypted with TLS during processing. That is the longest retention among the hosted tools in this list.

The free limits are the tightest we found. The compress and unlock pages state 2 files per day with a size limit of 3 MB. We did not find a figure on the merge page, so the file-count cell says "Not stated" and the size cell shows the cap from those other tools.

No account is required on the compress tool, and it adds no watermark. Dollar prices were not shown in the page source, where the buttons say "See prices". The plans are Pro, Team and Business, with no perpetual licence, so we cannot quote a price.

Its pricing page says the web app can be used on Mac, Linux, iOS and Android, and lists Windows deployment through GPO, SCCM and Citrix. The site is available in 15 languages.

Trustpilot shows 4.2 out of 5 from 1,841 reviews, which is lower than iLovePDF's self-reported score and Smallpdf's 4.8.

Choose Soda PDF if you already own it. If the cap on its other online tools also applies to merging, it is the weakest hosted option here for free use.