Guides

AstralPDF vs iLovePDF

2026-09-22 · 6 min read

Both merge, split, compress and convert PDFs, and both are free to start. The difference that actually decides it is where your file is processed, and the honest answer is that this makes AstralPDF the better choice for some documents and the worse choice for others.

The difference in one line

iLovePDF is a server application: you upload the file, their machines do the work, you download the result. AstralPDF is a browser application: the work happens in the tab, and the file never goes anywhere.

Every tool on AstralPDF runs inside your browser tab. Files are read into memory, worked on, and handed back as a download. No upload step exists, which you can verify by loading a tool, disconnecting from the internet, and using it anyway.

This is architecture, not a promise. A local tool has nothing to delete because it never received anything; a cloud tool can only promise to delete it afterwards.

When the difference matters

For a holiday itinerary, it does not matter at all. For a signed contract, a medical record, a bank statement, an ID scan, or anything covered by a client confidentiality clause, it is the whole decision. Many organisations forbid sending client documents to third-party services; a tool that runs in the browser is one of the few options that needs no procurement approval and no installation.

Where iLovePDF is genuinely better

Several things it does that we do not, and if you need them, use it:

• OCR. Turning a scan into searchable text is a heavy operation and we do not offer it at all.
• Word, Excel and PowerPoint conversion. Our Word to PDF tool is not built yet; the page does not exist.
• Cloud storage integrations, so you can pull a file straight from Drive or Dropbox.
• Mobile apps and a desktop app, where we are a website only.
• A paid tier with support behind it, which matters if you are deploying this across a team.

Where the browser approach wins

• Confidential files never leave the device, so there is nothing to trust and nothing to delete.
• No account, no email address, no verification step before you can merge two pages.
• No per-day task counting, because there is no server doing the counting. The ceiling is your device's memory.
• It works offline once the page is loaded.

Side by side

The honest recommendation

If your file is confidential, or you simply do not want to hand a document to a company you have not vetted, use a browser-local tool and check that it really is local. If you need OCR or Office conversion, iLovePDF does things we have not built. Most people end up wanting both for different jobs, and that is a reasonable outcome rather than a failure of either.

Frequently asked questions