Quick answer
Yes — for the part of Sejda covered on this page, PDFsmith is a one-time-purchase alternative. It costs $29 once, while Sejda lists from $63/yr. Merge, split, rotate, watermark & convert PDFs offline. No uploads, ever. It is not a 1:1 replacement for everything Sejda does — the honest limits are spelled out below.
The verdict
Switch to PDFsmith if the slice of Sejda you actually pay for is the slice PDFsmith covers — and a $29 one-time price beats from $63/yr for as long as you use it.
Stay with Sejda if this sounds like you — Sejda can edit existing text inside a PDF, fill forms, and redact — things PDFsmith explicitly does not attempt. If you need to rewrite a PDF's contents rather than reassemble it, Sejda is the better tool.
Head to head
| PDFsmith | Sejda | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29 once | from $63/yr |
| Where it runs | Your own machine | Vendor cloud (hosted service) |
| Renewal | None — the license never expires | Recurring — access ends when you stop paying |
| 5-year cost | $29 | ~$315 |
About Sejda: Sejda is a PDF editor with web and desktop versions. It sells $5 weekly passes and an annual plan around $63/yr; the free tier caps documents by size and daily tasks.
Where Sejda still wins
Sejda can edit existing text inside a PDF, fill forms, and redact — things PDFsmith explicitly does not attempt. If you need to rewrite a PDF's contents rather than reassemble it, Sejda is the better tool.
Where PDFsmith wins
PDFsmith does Sejda's daily-driver jobs — merge, split, rotate, watermark, images-to-PDF, metadata editing — locally with no daily task caps and no file-size ceilings, for $29 once. Nothing is uploaded and there is no counter resetting tomorrow.
- Price, permanently. $29 once versus from $63/yr for as long as you use it. There is no renewal, no seat count and no tier gate.
- 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.
The math
Sejda lists from $63/yr. PDFsmith is $29, paid once:
- After 1 year: PDFsmith has cost you $29 total — Sejda has cost ~$63.
- After 3 years: PDFsmith is still $29 — the subscription is at ~$189.
- After 5 years: PDFsmith is still $29 — the subscription is at ~$315.
Common questions
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+.
Can it edit text inside a PDF?
No — and we'd rather tell you that upfront. PDFsmith covers merge, split, rotate, watermark, images-to-PDF and metadata. For rewriting body text inside an existing PDF you still need a full editor like Acrobat.
Try PDFsmith — $29, one time
Or get PDFsmith plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.