PDFCraftTool/pdfcraft

Overview

PDFCraft is a self-hostable, browser-based PDF toolkit that runs entirely client-side using WebAssembly, so files never leave the user's device (15). It offers more than 90 tools for organizing, editing, converting, optimizing, and securing PDFs, covering tasks from merging and splitting to OCR, form filling, and encryption (25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31). The project is built with Next.js 15, React 19, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS 4 (32), and provides a static-export build suitable for any static host (57). A visual workflow editor (beta) lets users chain operations into reusable pipelines with 23+ templates (21)(22)(23).

Getting started

To run locally, you need Node.js 18.17 or later and a package manager such as npm, yarn, or pnpm (41). Clone the repository and start the development server:

git clone https://github.com/PDFCraftTool/pdfcraft.git
cd pdfcraft
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000 to use the app (42). The dev script runs Turbopack and automatically decompresses LibreOffice WASM files; the build script prepares static files in the out directory (56). For production, you can use the pre-built Docker image:

docker pull ghcr.io/pdfcrafttool/pdfcraft:latest
docker run -d -p 8080:80 --name pdfcraft ghcr.io/pdfcrafttool/pdfcraft:latest

Then visit http://localhost:8080 (46)(47). Alternatively, build and deploy the static output to Vercel, Netlify, GitHub Pages, or Cloudflare Pages; deployment configuration files are included (59)(61).

Usage constraints

PDFCraft relies on WebAssembly for heavy PDF operations, so browser support for WASM is required. The workflow editor is labeled as early development and may contain bugs or incomplete functionality (21). Some advanced features, such as OCR, Office conversion, and certain font handling, depend on large WASM modules that are decompressed during development and build steps (56). Subpath deployment requires setting the BASE_PATH environment variable at build time because the app is statically exported (52)(55). The project is licensed under AGPL-3.0 (3).

HotRepo's take

The repository has accumulated 9,781 stars and 2,132 forks since its creation in January 2026, indicating strong early interest. However, there are no recorded GitHub daily rankings or star-curve snapshots in HotRepo's data, so we cannot assess short-term momentum or trending position. The project's value lies in its extensive toolset and privacy-first architecture; the beta workflow editor and reliance on WASM modules are areas to watch for stability and performance as development continues.