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Home/Categories/Business & Productivity/PDFsam Basic
icon of PDFsam Basic

PDFsam Basic

Open source alternative to Adobe Acrobat Pro, Smallpdf and

Sejda PDF

PDFsam Basic is a desktop tool for splitting, merging, rotating, and reordering PDF pages without uploading files to any cloud service. AGPL-3.0 licensed, runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

4.4K starsJavaAGPL-3.0Active this month
Visit websiteGitHub repo
image of PDFsam Basic
Contents
  1. 01Who PDFsam Basic is for
  2. 02The problem it solves
  3. 03How it solves it
  4. 04Strengths and trade-offs
  5. 05Tech stack
  6. 06FAQ
  7. 07Similar open-source tools
TL;DR

PDFsam Basic is a desktop PDF utility for splitting, merging, extracting, mixing, and rotating PDF files without uploading documents to a web service. It replaces Adobe Acrobat Pro or Smallpdf for users who need common PDF page operations on Windows, macOS, or Linux.AGPL-3.0 · Java · 4.4K stars · Active this month

who it's for

Who PDFsam Basic is for#

Office users organizing scanned PDFs

Use PDFsam Basic to split scans, merge document packets, and rotate pages without buying a full PDF editor.

Skip if:

You need OCR, redaction, or advanced form editing.

Legal or finance teams handling sensitive files

Use PDFsam Basic when confidential PDFs should stay local during simple page operations.

Skip if:

Your workflow requires cloud sharing, approval routing, or e-signature collection.

IT teams reducing Acrobat seat count

Use PDFsam Basic for users who only need split and merge operations, keeping paid seats for advanced editors.

tech stack · detected from GitHub

What it's built on#

Languages
Java
frequently asked

FAQ#

What does PDFsam Basic do?
Is PDFsam Basic open source?
Does PDFsam Basic upload PDFs?
also worth a look

Similar open-source tools#

Stirling PDF

Stirling PDF

Self-hosted PDF editor with 50+ tools for every PDF task

78.7KTypeScriptMIT

Repository

Stars
4.4K
Forks
393
License
AGPL-3.0
Latest
v6.0.1
Last commit
24 days ago
Last verified
May 13, 2026
Repo
torakiki/pdfsam ↗

Additional details

Language
Java
Open issues
120
Contributors
19
First release
2013

Categories

Business & ProductivityIT ManagementDeveloper Tools

Tags

DocumentationOpen CoreSelf HostedFile Sync & StorageDeveloper ToolsmacOS

Skip if:

Every user needs the full Acrobat toolset.

the problem

The problem it solves#

Simple PDF tasks often push users toward paid editors or browser upload tools. That is wasteful when the job is just merging invoices, extracting pages, or rotating scans. It can also create privacy risk when confidential PDFs are uploaded to third-party services for edits that should happen locally.

how PDFsam Basic solves it

How it solves it#

Split and merge PDFs locally

PDFsam Basic focuses on extracting pages, splitting documents, merging files, mixing pages, and rotating PDFs from a desktop app.

Cross-platform desktop packaging

PDFsam Basic is multi-platform, and newer versions ship as self-contained applications.

No document upload required

Because PDF operations happen locally, sensitive PDFs do not need to be sent to a browser-based conversion service.

AGPL-licensed Basic edition

PDFsam Basic is open source under GNU AGPL since version 3, with earlier versions under GPLv2.

strengths · trade-offs

Strengths and trade-offs#

Strengths

  • Good for repeated page operationsPDFsam Basic targets the operations office users repeat often: split, merge, mix, rotate, and extract. It avoids the cost of a full PDF editor for those tasks.
  • Local processing improves privacyCompared with upload-based web tools, a local desktop utility is safer for contracts, invoices, and internal documents.
  • Simple open source alternativeThe Basic edition gives teams a free local option before they buy Acrobat seats for users who only need page-level PDF tasks.

Trade-offs

  • -Not a full PDF editing suitePDFsam Basic does not replace Acrobat Pro for deep text editing, OCR workflows, form authoring, redaction, or e-signature workflows.
  • -Desktop workflow onlyTeams that need browser-based collaboration or automated API processing should look beyond PDFsam Basic.

No. PDFsam Basic is a desktop app, so common page operations run locally rather than through an upload service.

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PDFsam Basic splits, merges, extracts, mixes, and rotates PDF files from a desktop application.

Yes. PDFsam Basic has been AGPL-licensed since version 3, with previous versions under GPLv2.