Stirling-PDF vs Zettlr
| Tagline | Locally hosted web app for merging, splitting, converting, and OCR-ing PDFs | Markdown editor built for academics with Zettelkasten and citation support |
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| Replaces | Notion, Confluence | Notion, Obsidian |
| GitHub stars | 82k | 11k |
| Language | Docker | TypeScript |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 1/5 Effortless |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose | Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 5 days ago | 1 month ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Stirling-PDF
- Not a document-management or collaboration tool — purely a PDF processing utility.
- Advanced features like user auth and SSO require the paid Stirling-PDF Pro license.
- No document storage or versioning; files must be uploaded and downloaded manually each session.
- OCR accuracy depends on Tesseract language packs installed in the container.
Zettlr
- No mobile app; desktop-only experience limits on-the-go access
- No real-time collaboration or multi-user sync; single-user only
- Cloud sync relies entirely on third-party tools (Dropbox, Syncthing, etc.)
Bottom line
Choose Zettlr if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Stirling-PDF for the larger community and ecosystem. Stirling-PDF has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Stirling-PDF
Locally hosted web app for merging, splitting, converting, and OCR-ing PDFs