What is PDFsam used for?

PDFsam is a free, multi-platform desktop application for splitting, merging, mixing and rotating PDF files and extracting pages, built with JavaFX. It is a good fit for combining several PDFs into one, pulling selected pages out of a document and fixing page orientation.

Is PDFsam open source?

Yes. PDFsam is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at torakiki/pdfsam and is written mainly in Java.

Yes. PDFsam is open source, so the software itself is free to use. Paid plans are also available, starting at $34.90 per seat.

Can I self-host PDFsam?

Yes. PDFsam can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is PDFsam an alternative to?

PDFsam is an open-source alternative to Smallpdf, iLovePDF, Adobe Acrobat and Soda PDF. Other open-source alternatives to Smallpdf include Stirling PDF, BentoPDF and OmniTools.

Is PDFsam actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to PDFsam was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v6.0.6, published on 2 October 2026. The project has 4.6k stars on GitHub.

PDFsam: open-source alternative to Smallpdf, iLovePDF

About PDFsam

PDFsam, short for PDF Split And Merge, is a desktop application for working with PDF files. PDFsam Basic, the free and open-source edition developed in this repository, extracts pages, splits, merges, mixes and rotates documents on multiple platforms.

The application is written with JavaFX. Since version 4 it is released as a self-contained application that bundles a jlinked JDK, whereas version 3 required a Java Runtime Environment 8 with JavaFX installed. Documentation, an FAQ, build instructions, contribution guidelines, a translation project and a list of properties and arguments to tweak behavior are all linked from the repository.

Since version 3, PDFsam Basic is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, while earlier versions were released under GPLv2. The software runs locally on your computer, so documents do not need to be uploaded to a web service.

Key features

Split PDF files
Merge and combine PDFs
Mix pages from several documents
Rotate PDF pages
Extract selected pages
Self-contained app with bundled JDK

Good fit for

→Combining several PDFs into one
→Pulling selected pages out of a document
→Fixing page orientation

Built with: Java
Tags: pdf; pdf-tools; split-pdf; merge-pdf; desktop; javafx; java; document

PDFsam: questions and answers

What is PDFsam used for?: PDFsam is a free, multi-platform desktop application for splitting, merging, mixing and rotating PDF files and extracting pages, built with JavaFX. It is a good fit for combining several PDFs into one, pulling selected pages out of a document and fixing page orientation.
Is PDFsam open source?: Yes. PDFsam is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at torakiki/pdfsam and is written mainly in Java.
Is PDFsam free?: Yes. PDFsam is open source, so the software itself is free to use. Paid plans are also available, starting at $34.90 per seat.
Can I self-host PDFsam?: Yes. PDFsam can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is PDFsam an alternative to?: PDFsam is an open-source alternative to Smallpdf, iLovePDF, Adobe Acrobat and Soda PDF. Other open-source alternatives to Smallpdf include Stirling PDF, BentoPDF and OmniTools.
Is PDFsam actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to PDFsam was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v6.0.6, published on 2 October 2026. The project has 4.6k stars on GitHub.