📄 PDFsmith
Every PDF tool you actually use — running 100% on your machine.
PDFsmith at a glance
| Price | $29, once — no renewal |
| Replaces | SmallPDF at $12–15/mo — roughly $144 a year, every year |
| Type | Desktop app — runs offline |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Category | Utilities |
PDFsmith features
🔗 Merge PDFs
Drag-drop any number of PDFs, reorder them in the list, combine into one file.
✂️ Split PDF
Extract any page ranges (1-2 | 3 | 4-6) into separate new PDFs.
🔄 Rotate pages
90° / 180° / 270°, all pages or a specific range, batched across files.
💧 Watermark
Text (position, size, opacity, diagonal) or image stamp — batch across files.
🖼️ Images → PDF
JPG/PNG to PDF, one image per page, reorderable, A4-fit or native size.
🏷️ Metadata editor
Read and rewrite title, author and subject — something SmallPDF doesn't even offer.
🔒 100% offline
All processing happens locally with pdf-lib. No network calls, no uploads, no account.
🧾 No telemetry
Your contracts, invoices and records never leave your disk. Zero analytics.
$29 once — that's the whole pricing page
SmallPDF charges $12–15/mo — roughly $144 a year, every year. PDFsmith is a single payment, and it keeps working whether or not we ever sell another copy.
Or get PDFsmith inside the full suite — every app in the catalog, currently $97 for the bundle. See the bundle →
PDFsmith guides & pages
Honest answers
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes. The full source code is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/pdf-toolkit-mvp and always will be. Buying gets you the signed Windows installer, 1-click setup and updates — pure convenience, zero lock-in.
Do my PDFs get uploaded anywhere?
No. All processing runs locally with pdf-lib, a pure-JavaScript library. The app makes no network calls at all — you can run it with Wi-Fi off.
What platforms does it run on?
The packaged installer is for Windows. The MIT source runs anywhere Electron does (Windows, macOS, Linux) if you build it yourself with Node 18+.