Documents and notes

PDF Expert alternatives

2 open-source projects that already do this job. Free to use - not free to run, which is what the numbers on the right are for.

The full assessment →

The projects

SteveTheKiller/KillerPDF3,289GPL-3.0A free Windows PDF editor with viewing, annotation, OCR, signing, merging, splitting and text editing.Open on GitHub mrmn2/PdfDing1,835AGPL-3.0Self-hosted PDF manager, viewer and editor providing multi-device access and editing features.Open on GitHub

What you give up either way

PDF Copilot: AI-powered assistant to interact with PDFs
Native macOS/iOS integrations and Apple Pencil-optimized UI
App Store distribution, reviews, and Readdle brand trust
Priority support and product polish (continuous native updates)
Proprietary 'Enhance' (AI-based scan cleanup) and potentially higher-quality OCR tuning

An open-source project doing the core job proves a replacement is possible. It does not prove it matches PDF Expert, and it does not prove anyone has run it for a month. How we decide.