An iLovePDF alternative that never uploads your files
iLovePDF is a well-built and genuinely popular set of PDF tools, and for a lot of everyday jobs it works fine. The part people tend to overlook is what actually happens when you press the button: your document is sent to iLovePDF's servers, processed there, held for a retention window and then deleted. That is normal for online PDF services, and it is the one thing PDFTools does differently.
PDFTools does the work in the tab you already have open. The PDF is read from your disk into the memory of the page, rewritten by JavaScript running on your own machine, and handed back to you as a download. There is no upload step, so there is no copy of your document on anyone else's hardware and no retention policy to take on trust.
The practical side effects are the ones people notice first. Nothing to sign up for, no daily task counter, no waiting in a queue behind other people's files, and no size ceiling imposed by an upload endpoint — the limit is whatever your own browser and memory can handle. On a slow connection, a 60 MB scan is dramatically quicker to process locally than to upload twice.
PDFTools vs iLovePDF
| Feature | PDFTools | iLovePDF |
|---|---|---|
| Where files are processed | In your browser, on your device | Uploaded to and processed on remote servers |
| Account required | Never — no sign-in exists | Free use without an account; sign-in unlocks more |
| Free tier limits | None imposed by us; bounded by your device | Free tier has task and file-size limits |
| Works offline | Yes, once the page has loaded | No — the server does the work |
| Paid plan | No paid plan, no ads, no upsell | Premium subscription for higher limits and extras |
| Tool coverage | Ten core tools: organise, optimise, convert, metadata | Much wider suite, including OCR, sign and desktop apps |
Where iLovePDF is still the better fit
We would rather be straight with you than pretend the comparison is one-sided. Stick with iLovePDF when you need:
- OCR, to make a scanned page searchable — that needs a large language model of the alphabet and heavy processing that suits a server.
- Electronic signature workflows with signer invitations, audit trails and reminders.
- Word, Excel or PowerPoint conversion, which depends on server-side Office rendering.
- Mobile and desktop apps, or a cloud account that keeps your files between sessions.
- Batch jobs across dozens of large files, where a server farm simply has more muscle than one browser tab.
If your job is on that list, use the bigger suite and do it knowingly. If it is a merge, a split, a compress, a rotate or a page shuffle, there is no good reason for the file to leave your laptop.
What PDFTools does well
- Merge several PDFs into one, in the order you set.
- Split a PDF by page range, or into one file per page as a ZIP.
- Compress a large scan down to something you can email.
- Convert JPG images to PDF, and PDF pages back to JPG.
- Rotate, delete, reorder and extract pages without rasterising the text.
- View and edit PDF metadata such as title, author and keywords.
How to verify nothing is uploaded
Open any PDFTools tool, press F12 and select the Network tab. Tick “Preserve log”, clear the list, then pick a real PDF and run the tool. You will see scripts and fonts load — and no request carrying your document.
Then go further: load the tool page, switch the Network tab to “Offline” or turn off Wi-Fi, and run the tool anyway. It still produces a download. A server-based tool could not.
The longer explanation, including what the claim does and does not cover, is on our private PDF tools page.
Try the tools
Every tool below runs locally. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.
Merge PDF
Combine multiple PDF files into one document.
Split PDF
Extract pages or split a PDF into multiple files.
Compress PDF
Reduce PDF file size.
JPG to PDF
Convert JPG images into a PDF.
PDF to JPG
Convert PDF pages into JPG images.
Rotate PDF
Rotate PDF pages.
Delete PDF Pages
Remove unwanted pages from a PDF.
Reorder PDF Pages
Change the order of pages in a PDF.
Extract PDF Pages
Save selected pages as a new PDF.
PDF Metadata
View or edit PDF metadata.
Frequently asked questions
- Is PDFTools really free?
- Yes. There is no paid tier, no account and no ads. Because your files are processed on your own device, running the tools costs us nothing per file, so there is nothing to meter.
- Does PDFTools have every iLovePDF tool?
- No. PDFTools covers ten core tools — merge, split, compress, JPG to PDF, PDF to JPG, rotate, delete pages, reorder pages, extract pages and metadata. It does not do OCR, e-signatures or Office file conversion.
- Are there file size or daily limits?
- We impose none. The practical ceiling is how much memory your browser will give one tab, which on a normal laptop comfortably handles files far larger than a typical free-tier upload limit.
- Do I need to install anything?
- No. PDFTools is a normal website. There is no extension, no desktop app and no installer — open the page and use the tool.