PDF Arranger and Stirling-PDF sit at opposite ends of the free PDF world. PDF Arranger is a small desktop app: install it, double-click, arrange pages, done. Stirling-PDF is a self-hosted web application with more than fifty tools — including OCR, compression and format conversion — that you run on your own server and use through a browser. One is about doing a narrow job with zero infrastructure; the other is about owning a complete PDF toolbox. This comparison uses PDF Arranger 1.14.0 and Stirling-PDF 3.2.0, released on October 15, 2026.
At a glance
| PDF Arranger 1.14.0 | Stirling-PDF 3.2.0 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price and licensing | Free, open source (GPL-3.0-or-later) | Self-hosted free for small teams (up to 5 users); larger organisations need a commercial licence — licence pricing is not officially documented in the sources checked for this article |
| How it runs | Desktop app on your computer, fully offline | Self-hosted web app (Docker or Java), used in a browser; a desktop client also exists |
| Page organizing | Core strength: visual drag-and-drop merge, split, reorder, rotate, crop | Included among 50+ tools |
| Edit text, OCR, convert | No editing, no OCR, no format conversion | Yes — OCR, conversion and many more tools are part of the toolbox |
| Compress | No | Yes |
| Sign, watermark, redact | No | Yes — signing, watermarks and redaction are included |
| Setup cost | One small installer; no server, no accounts | You deploy, secure, update and back up a server application |
| Where files live | On your computer only | On your own server |
Breadth vs. focus
Stirling-PDF is the widest free toolbox in this series. Beyond organizing pages it can compress files, run OCR so scans become searchable, convert between formats, add watermarks, sign, redact, flatten forms, and manage encryption and permissions. Those are precisely the things PDF Arranger does not attempt. If your PDF work regularly spans five different kinds of task, a Stirling-PDF instance gives your whole household or team one address for all of them — and its popularity reflects that: the project had 94,661 GitHub stars when checked in October 2026.
PDF Arranger’s counter-argument is focus. Page arranging is the whole product, so it is done in one window with direct visual feedback: drag the thumbnails, crop, build a booklet, edit the metadata, export. There is no service to start, no port to open, no login, and the program works the same on a laptop with no network at all. For the single job of getting pages in order, it is simply less machinery.
The real cost: running a server
Stirling-PDF’s licence terms changed as the project grew up: it is now open-core. Small teams of up to five users can self-host for free, while larger organisations need a commercial licence. Either way, the operational cost is yours. A Java-based server application needs a host that stays on, updates you apply, and sensible security if anyone beyond your own desk can reach it. None of that is unreasonable — but it is a weekend project before it is a PDF tool, and it only pays off if the toolbox gets used.
Privacy, interestingly, is a tie with different shapes. PDF Arranger never lets a file leave your computer. Stirling-PDF keeps files on infrastructure you control instead of a stranger’s cloud, which is the right answer for teams — but you become the person responsible for that infrastructure.
Verdict: who should choose which
- Choose Stirling-PDF if you need OCR, compression or conversion regularly, want one toolbox for a small team, and are comfortable running and maintaining a self-hosted service.
- Choose PDF Arranger if your job is arranging pages — merging, splitting, reordering, booklets — and you want a free desktop app that works offline with nothing to deploy.
- Choose neither if you need OCR or editing but do not want to run a server: a commercial desktop editor such as Adobe Acrobat (sponsored) or Wondershare PDFelement (sponsored) covers those jobs with no infrastructure at all.
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