KeptPDF's answer

A family member got seriously ill. We spent most days at the hospital, and straight answers were hard to come by, so we leaned on AI tools to make sense of the records, notes, and lab results.

But you cannot paste a medical record into an AI chat. You have to strip the names, the ID numbers, the diagnoses first. And almost every tool we found either wanted to upload the whole file to a server, or "auto-redacted" by sending the document text to an online AI. That was the exact thing we were trying to avoid.

Most of this was happening on a phone, at a bedside. So I built the tool I needed: redaction that runs on the device, works on mobile, and never sends the file anywhere. That turned into KeptPDF, which is now a full PDF suite with over 20 tools, all local-first.

Shieldome's answer:

It started when I wanted to check my own websites for vulnerabilities and realized serious web security was either locked behind expensive enterprise tools or scattered across open-source tools that take real time to configure. I'm a solo founder and developer, so I built Shieldome end to end - the scanning engine, dark web monitoring, the platform, and all the go-to-market - to close that gap: something powerful enough to catch real issues, but simple and affordable enough that anyone can use it. The guiding idea is "find it before they do."

KeptPDF's answer

KeptPDF runs entirely in your browser. Your file, and the text inside it, never leaves your device. Not to an AI, not even to us. You can open your browser's network tab and watch: the document bytes never go out.

Most online PDF tools upload your file to a server first, and some "AI redaction" services quietly send your document text to a third-party model. That is the exact risk people are trying to avoid when they redact something.

KeptPDF also does true redaction. The text is removed from the file, not covered with a black box you can copy out later. Every redaction produces a verification certificate you can share with the file.

Shieldome's answer:

Shieldome combines two things most tools keep separate: DAST-based web vulnerability scanning and dark web / breach monitoring, in one platform. It's built for people without a security team, with pricing that fits how you actually work - pay-as-you-go tokens for one-off scans (1 token = 1 scan), or a SaaS subscription for continuous, automated monitoring. Add a white-label option so agencies and hosts can resell it under their own brand, plus full REST API access, and you get enterprise-grade security without the enterprise price or complexity.

KeptPDF's answer

Three reasons.

Privacy you can verify, not just a promise. Processing happens locally in the browser, so there is no upload step to trust. We do send anonymous usage counts for quota, and we say so plainly, but never your document.

Real redaction with proof. Removed text is permanently gone, and you get a certificate showing the file was checked for leftover extractable text. Automated detection cannot catch everything, so a final human review is still your job, and the tool says that too.

It works on a phone. Most PDF suites assume a desktop. KeptPDF was built and used on a phone first, so redacting a document while you are standing in a hallway actually works.

Shieldome's answer:

Most competitors are priced and built for enterprises or security professionals, which leaves small businesses, agencies and hosting providers out. Shieldome is simpler to use, transparently priced, and flexible: buy tokens as you need them, or subscribe for continuous monitoring. The white-label and API options turn security into something agencies can offer their own clients as a revenue stream, not just an internal cost. And because it's a lean, one-person operation, it moves fast and stays close to user feedback.

KeptPDF's answer

Anyone who has to hand a document to someone else and needs the sensitive parts gone first.

In practice that is solo attorneys and small law firms, accountants and tax preparers, healthcare and records staff handling requests, HR teams, and individuals dealing with their own medical, legal, or financial paperwork.

The common thread is not an industry. It is a person who cannot upload a confidential file to a random website, and who does not have an enterprise IT budget to solve it.

Shieldome's answer:

Small and medium businesses, web agencies, and hosting providers who need to secure websites but don't have a dedicated security team. Agencies and hosts in particular can use the white-label option to offer scanning and monitoring to their own clients. Developers and technical founders who want to automate scans via the API are a secondary audience.

KeptPDF's answer

The app is plain JavaScript with no front-end framework, which keeps it fast and keeps the code auditable.

PDF work happens in the browser using pdf.js for rendering and pdf-lib for writing. Text recognition uses Tesseract running as WebAssembly. Password and encryption handling uses a WebAssembly build of qpdf. It is a Progressive Web App, so it installs and works offline.

The thin server side is Node on Vercel, with Postgres for accounts, Stripe for billing, and Resend for email. None of those ever see a document.

KeptPDF's answer

KeptPDF is early and independent, and we do not publish customer names. The product is privacy-first by design: we never see your documents, and we do not track who our users are or what they work on. Publishing a client list would sit badly next to that.

The user base today is mostly solo attorneys, small firms, accountants, and individuals handling their own records.