Stirling-PDF vs Gotenberg vs OCRmyPDF: Self-Hosted PDF Processing Guide 2026

If you handle PDFs — whether that is merging documents, converting HTML to PDF, adding watermarks, or extracting text from scanned images — you have three main self-hosted options, each with a very different approach. Stirling-PDF gives you a full web interface with 50+ PDF tools. Gotenberg provides a Docker-based HTTP API for programmatic PDF generation and conversion. OCRmyPDF adds optical character recognition to scanned PDFs, making them searchable and accessible.

In this guide, we compare all three tools side by side so you can pick the right one for your workflow — or combine them for a complete self-hosted PDF processing pipeline.

Quick Comparison

Stirling-PDF: The All-in-One PDF Toolkit

Stirling-PDF is a web-based PDF manipulation application with over 50 built-in tools. It is designed for users who need to perform PDF operations through a browser interface — merge, split, rotate, compress, convert, sign, watermark, and more — without uploading files to a third-party service.

Docker Deployment

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services:
  stirling-pdf:
    image: frooodle/s-pdf:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./data:/usr/share/tessdata
      - ./configs:/configs
    environment:
      - DOCKER_ENABLE_SECURITY=false
      - INSTALL_BOOK_AND_ADVANCED_HTML_OPS=false
      - LANGS=en_US
    restart: unless-stopped

Key Features

• Merge and split — combine multiple PDFs into one or extract specific pages
• Convert formats — PDF to images, images to PDF, PDF to Word/Excel (via LibreOffice)
• Security — add passwords, remove encryption, redact sensitive content
• Editing — add watermarks, rotate pages, reorder pages, flatten forms
• OCR integration — basic OCR via Tesseract (separate from OCRmyPDF’s specialized engine)
• Batch processing — upload multiple files and process them in one operation
• Multi-language UI — translated into 30+ languages

When to Use Stirling-PDF

Choose Stirling-PDF when you need a general-purpose PDF toolkit with a graphical interface. It is ideal for office workers, legal teams, and anyone who regularly manipulates PDFs but does not want to write code. The web UI makes it accessible to non-technical users.

Gotenberg: API-First PDF Generation

Gotenberg is a Docker-based HTTP API that converts documents to PDF. Unlike Stirling-PDF’s interactive toolkit approach, Gotenberg is designed for developers who need to generate PDFs programmatically from HTML, Markdown, Microsoft Office documents, or images.

Docker Deployment

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services:
  gotenberg:
    image: gotenberg/gotenberg:8
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    command:
      - "gotenberg"
      - "--api-port=3000"
      - "--chromium-auto-start"
    restart: unless-stopped

Convert HTML to PDF via API

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curl --request POST \
  --url http://localhost:3000/forms/chromium/convert/html \
  --header "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" \
  --form "file=@invoice.html;type=text/html" \
  --form "waitDelay=500ms" \
  --form "nativePageRanges=1-3" \
  --output invoice.pdf

Convert Markdown to PDF

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curl --request POST \
  --url http://localhost:3000/forms/chromium/convert/markdown \
  --form "file=@report.md;type=text/markdown" \
  --form "header.html=@header.html" \
  --form "footer.html=@footer.html" \
  --form "paperSize=Letter" \
  --output report.pdf

Convert Office Documents to PDF

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curl --request POST \
  --url http://localhost:3000/forms/libreoffice/convert \
  --form "file=@presentation.pptx" \
  --form "landscape=true" \
  --form "exportFormFields=true" \
  --output presentation.pdf

Key Features

• HTML to PDF — renders web pages with full CSS, JavaScript, and font support using headless Chromium
• Markdown to PDF — converts Markdown files with custom headers and footers
• Office conversion — converts DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, and other Office formats via LibreOffice
• Merge PDFs — combine multiple PDFs into a single document
• PDF/A compliance — generate archival-quality PDF/A-1b, PDF/A-2b, and PDF/A-3b documents
• Custom headers/footers — add page numbers, company logos, and legal disclaimers
• Webhook support — receive callbacks when conversion completes

When to Use Gotenberg

Choose Gotenberg when you need to generate PDFs from a backend application. It is ideal for invoice generation, report creation, document conversion APIs, and any scenario where PDFs are produced programmatically rather than manually.

OCRmyPDF: Searchable PDFs from Scanned Documents

OCRmyPDF adds an OCR text layer to scanned PDF files, making them searchable, selectable, and accessible. It uses Tesseract OCR under the hood and produces high-quality output with PDF/A compliance.

Docker Deployment

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services:
  ocrmypdf:
    image: jbarlow83/ocrmypdf:latest
    volumes:
      - ./input:/input:ro
      - ./output:/output
    command: >
      ocrmypdf
      --language eng+fra
      --output-type pdfa
      --deskew
      --rotate-pages
      /input/scanned.pdf
      /output/searchable.pdf
    restart: "no"

CLI Usage

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# Basic OCR - add text layer to scanned PDF
ocrmypdf input_scanned.pdf output_searchable.pdf

# OCR with language detection and deskewing
ocrmypdf \
  --language eng+deu+fra \
  --deskew \
  --rotate-pages \
  --output-type pdfa \
  input_scanned.pdf output_searchable.pdf

# Process multiple files
for f in /scanned/*.pdf; do
  ocrmypdf --jobs 4 "$f" "/searchable/$(basename "$f")"
done

Key Features

• Tesseract OCR — uses the industry-standard Tesseract engine with 100+ language packs
• PDF/A output — generates archival-quality PDF/A-2b documents suitable for long-term storage
• Image preprocessing — deskew, remove background noise, optimize resolution
• Page rotation — automatically detects and corrects page orientation
• Parallel processing — use multiple CPU cores for faster OCR on multi-page documents
• Lossless optimization — compress images without quality loss using JBIG2 and other techniques
• Redo existing OCR — replace a poor OCR layer with a new one

When to Use OCRmyPDF

Choose OCRmyPDF when you need to digitize scanned documents. It is ideal for legal firms processing paper records, archives converting historical documents, and any organization that receives paper documents and needs to make them searchable.

Why Self-Host PDF Processing?

Uploading sensitive documents to free online PDF tools carries real risks. Those services process your files on unknown servers, often with no encryption in transit and no guarantee of deletion afterward. Contracts, financial statements, medical records, and internal documents should never leave your infrastructure.

Self-hosting PDF tools gives you full control over document handling. Files never leave your server, you control access with your own authentication, and you can integrate processing into your existing pipelines. For teams handling regulated data, self-hosting is not optional — it is a compliance requirement.

For document signing workflows, see our DocuSeal vs OpenSign vs LibreSign guide to handle legally binding signatures. For general file sharing and collaboration, our file upload server comparison covers complementary tools.

Combining All Three Tools

A complete self-hosted PDF pipeline might use all three tools together:

1. OCRmyPDF processes incoming scanned documents to make them searchable
2. Gotenberg generates new PDFs from HTML templates (invoices, reports)
3. Stirling-PDF provides a user-facing interface for manual operations (merge, split, rotate)

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services:
  stirling-pdf:
    image: frooodle/s-pdf:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"

  gotenberg:
    image: gotenberg/gotenberg:8
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"

  ocrmypdf:
    image: jbarlow83/ocrmypdf:latest
    # Run on-demand, not as a long-lived service

FAQ

Can Stirling-PDF do OCR?

Stirling-PDF includes basic OCR via Tesseract, but it is not as capable as OCRmyPDF. Stirling-PDF’s OCR is designed for simple text extraction, while OCRmyPDF offers advanced preprocessing (deskew, rotate, optimize), PDF/A compliance, and multi-language support. For serious OCR workloads, use OCRmyPDF alongside Stirling-PDF.

Does Gotenberg support PDF editing like merging or splitting?

Gotenberg supports merging multiple PDFs into one via its /forms/merge endpoint, but it does not support page extraction, rotation, or other manipulation features. For those operations, use Stirling-PDF or a dedicated PDF library like qpdf or pdftk.

How much disk space does OCRmyPDF need for large documents?

OCRmyPDF creates temporary files during processing. For a 100-page scanned PDF at 300 DPI, expect 500MB–1GB of temporary storage. The --jobs flag controls parallelism — more jobs means more temporary space but faster processing.

Can Gotenberg handle custom fonts and CSS?

Yes. Gotenberg uses headless Chromium, which supports any font and CSS you include in your HTML. Upload custom fonts via the API or mount them in the Docker container. You can also use Google Fonts by including the appropriate <link> tags in your HTML.

Are these tools suitable for production use?

All three are used in production by thousands of organizations. Stirling-PDF has 78K+ GitHub stars and active weekly releases. Gotenberg is used by major enterprises for document generation. OCRmyPDF is recommended by national archives and government agencies for document digitization projects.

Do any of these tools require an internet connection?

No. Once the Docker images are pulled, all three tools operate entirely offline. OCRmyPDF downloads language packs during image build, but processing happens locally. Stirling-PDF and Gotenberg have no external dependencies at runtime.