PDFsam Pro is the third desktop PDF tool I’ve uninstalled this year. Every one of them ships with an updater that nags, a free tier that watermarks my output, and a “Pro” upgrade banner the size of a parking ticket.

So I built the opposite: one HTML file, pdf-lib loaded in the browser, no upload, no signup, no cookies, no telemetry. Merge, split, and optimize all run on your machine — your PDFs never touch a server.

The three things I hear most from people who demo’d it: “wait, this is free?”, “does it work on mobile?”, and “why does every other PDF site want my email address?” The answer to all three is the same — there’s no server, no account system, no email capture. Once the page loads, it works offline. Your browser is the runtime.

I use it almost every day: merging multipage scans into a single document, pulling specific pages out of a large PDF without re-uploading anything, compressing a presentation before emailing it. Nothing revolutionary — just the thing I wanted to exist.

Try it: 217.142.241.107:3010<sub>

Comparison vs the usual suspects:

                      | PDF Tool | PDFsam Pro | Smallpdf | iLovePDF | Adobe

Runs in your browser | Yes | No (Java) | No | No | Desktop No signup or account | Yes | No | partial | partial | No Free for the basics | Yes | partial | 1-task | 1-task | Sub No ads / no upsell | Yes | No | No | No | No Works offline | Yes | No | No | No | Yes

Stack: single HTML file + pdf-lib. No build step, no npm. Works offline once loaded.

Feedback wanted — what’s the first PDF task that makes you reach for a paid tool? I’d rather build the thing that’s actually annoying you than guess.

#selfhosted