Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

iTextPDF VS PDFSharp

Compare iTextPDF VS PDFSharp and see what are their differences

iTextPDF logo iTextPDF

iText offers flexible tools for PDF creation, editing and inspection.

PDFSharp logo PDFSharp

Office & Productivity and Development
  • iTextPDF Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-09
  • PDFSharp Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-05

iTextPDF features and specs

  • Comprehensive Features
    iTextPDF offers a wide range of features for creating, manipulating, and processing PDF documents, making it suitable for various applications.
  • High Performance
    The library is known for its high performance and ability to handle large volumes of PDF documents efficiently.
  • Cross-Platform
    iTextPDF is cross-platform and can be used in different environments such as Java and .NET, enhancing its versatility.
  • Extensive Documentation
    iText provides comprehensive documentation and tutorials, which are helpful for developers to understand and effectively use the library.
  • Active Community and Support
    iTextPDF has an active community and provides professional support options, which can be beneficial for troubleshooting and optimizing usage.

Possible disadvantages of iTextPDF

  • Licensing Costs
    iTextPDF is not free for commercial use, and licensing costs can be a significant consideration for businesses.
  • Complexity
    Due to its comprehensive feature set, iTextPDF can be complex to learn and use, especially for newcomers or smaller projects.
  • Resource Intensive
    Processing PDFs at scale may require significant resources, which can be a factor for systems with limited computational capacity.
  • Overhead for Simple Tasks
    For simpler PDF tasks, iTextPDF might introduce unnecessary overhead compared to more lightweight libraries.

PDFSharp features and specs

  • Open Source
    PDFSharp is open source, allowing developers to use, modify, and contribute to the library freely.
  • No External Dependencies
    The library does not require any external dependencies or proprietary software, making it easy to integrate into projects.
  • Cross-Platform
    Supports multiple platforms, allowing it to run on Windows, Linux, and macOS without significant changes.
  • Document Creation
    Provides robust capabilities for creating PDFs from scratch, with support for various content types like text, images, and shapes.
  • Active Community
    Has an engaged user community and a good number of resources available online for learning and troubleshooting.

Possible disadvantages of PDFSharp

  • Limited Editing Capabilities
    PDFSharp excels at creating PDFs but has limited functionality when it comes to editing existing PDF files.
  • Performance Issues
    Some users report performance bottlenecks when dealing with very large PDF files due to its memory usage.
  • Lack of Advanced Features
    Does not support advanced PDF features like interactive forms, digital signatures, or encryption as extensively as some other libraries.
  • Sparse Documentation
    While basic documentation is available, more in-depth examples and advanced use cases might require additional research.

iTextPDF videos

IR project Demo (Java Eclipse + itextpdf)

PDFSharp videos

No PDFSharp videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to iTextPDF and PDFSharp)
PDF Tools
68 68%
32% 32
Office & Productivity
69 69%
31% 31
PDF Editor
52 52%
48% 48
HTML To PDF
79 79%
21% 21

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare iTextPDF and PDFSharp

iTextPDF Reviews

We have no reviews of iTextPDF yet.
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PDFSharp Reviews

2024 Best C#/ .NET PDF Library for Developers
PDFSharp is an open source .NET library that easily processes PDF documents under Windows, Linux, Mac, and all other .NET platforms. It supports most fundamental PDF features, such as creating new PDF documents, and modifying, merging, and splitting existing PDF files. With it, developers can use just one source code for drawing on a PDF page as well as in a window or on the...
Source: www.compdf.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, iTextPDF seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 6 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

iTextPDF mentions (6)

  • When Should I Use WebAssembly?
    PDF Manipulation: Render and edit PDF documents using a mature library like iText, running in Wasm. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Adobe’s Monopoly on PDFs: The Innovation Bottleneck and the Need for Open-Source Alternatives
    Some open-source PDF tools, like iText and Ghostscript, have restrictive licenses, making them impractical for commercial use. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • PDF rendering server-side using HTML 5 + CSS 3
    Are you looking for a way to render PDF's or produce them? If you want to produce PDF's, I've used https://pdfbox.apache.org/ successfully as well as https://itextpdf.com/ (potentially costs money). Source: over 1 year ago
  • I interviewed Bruno Lowagie, who successfully commercialized his FOSS library, iText, between 2008 and 2018, for Code Code Ship: “Commercializing iText had a significant impact on the quality of the library”
    So, the case study would be an optional request/collaboration, but slapping your logo on their site (as seen on their home page just below the fold) is not written as optional. Say what you will about AGPL, but if you're a paying customer, this should be an easy provision to strike from the agreement if requested. They declined and our internal legal team refused to accept the agreement as a result and so we found... Source: about 2 years ago
  • How do i convert html file to pdf file using java(fx)?
    Not really a JavaFX question as JavaFX is a UI framework. Your question is therefore just related to Java. To answer that I've seen a similar feature from IText (https://itextpdf.com) or OpenPDF (https://github.com/LibrePDF/OpenPDF) as an open source alternative. Maybe take a look at those for a start and check if they provide you what you're looking for. Source: over 2 years ago
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PDFSharp mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of PDFSharp yet. Tracking of PDFSharp recommendations started around Dec 2022.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing iTextPDF and PDFSharp, you can also consider the following products

PDF Joiner - This online tool allows you to join several PDF documents into a single file, free of charge.

PdfPig - Read and extract text and other content from PDFs in C# (port of PDFBox)

PDFill - Open, View, Edit, Save and Print PDF Documents without Adobe Acrobat

PDFJet - PDFJet is a mobile and cloud PDF Library for Java and .NET to generate PDF documents.

PDFChef Merge PDF - PDFChef Merge PDF is an online tool that allows you to merge multiple PDf files into one quickly and securely.

VeryPDF PDF Editor - VeryPDF PDF Editor can edit the PDF content, page sequence and annotation, create PDF and convert PDF.