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My Own Suite

Stirling PDF

Replaces Adobe Acrobat / iLovePDF

Office & documents Light resources

Stirling PDF gives you a private toolbox for everyday document work: merge, split, compress, convert, OCR, sign, redact, and automate PDFs without uploading them to random websites.

Install it from Suite Manager → Apps — once running it lives at stirling-pdf.<your-domain> and on your Home dashboard.

What you can do

  • Fix everyday PDF problems — Merge, split, compress, rotate, redact, sign, and convert documents from one private web app.
  • Keep sensitive files local — Run document tools on your own server instead of sending private files to third-party upload sites.
  • Automate repeat work — Use pipelines for repeatable document workflows when the same manual steps keep coming back.

A self-hosted Adobe Acrobat alternative

Stirling PDF does the job people use Adobe Acrobat, iLovePDF, Smallpdf, PDF24, Sejda, Soda PDF, Nitro PDF, and Foxit PDF for, on a server you own: the same everyday task, without a subscription and without an account at a company that also keeps your data. If you arrived comparing one of these, this is the app My Own Suite installs in its place — its privacy posture below says exactly what it does and does not send anywhere.

  • Adobe Acrobat alternative
  • iLovePDF alternative
  • Smallpdf alternative
  • PDF24 alternative
  • Sejda alternative
  • Soda PDF alternative
  • Nitro PDF alternative
  • Foxit PDF alternative

Good to know

  • Resource needs: Light resources — A good first app for testing the catalog because it runs as one straightforward web service.
  • Package-provided privacy notes (not independently verified by MOS): MOS configures the self-hosted server to process ordinary PDF tasks locally and disable known optional analytics.
    • Persistent app data is kept in package-owned volumes.
    • User-invoked features such as trusted timestamping can contact an external service.
    • The assessment is configuration- and documentation-based; it does not prove complete network silence.
Try before you commit

Just want to try Stirling PDF?

MOS is the way to grow a suite — apps installed, backed up, and updated together, all in one tailored dashboard. But if you'd rather see Stirling PDF on its own first, we've set up a one-click deploy on Railway so you can kick the tires with nothing to install.

Install in MOS

Recommended
  • Yours to control — runs on your own machine or any VPS you pick — and can move anytime
  • One dashboard — every app you run, in one place at your own domain
  • Backups built in — back up and restore your apps in a couple of clicks
  • Fully private if you want — on your own hardware, apps can stay off the public internet entirely
  • Updates handled — version-pinned, health-checked, applied for you
  • HTTPS and domains — trusted certificates without touching DNS records
  • Apps that connect — file, calendar, and office apps work together
Get started with MOS

Try it on Railway

Good for testing
  • Live in minutes — deploy from a template, fill in a few setup fields
  • The real thing, not a demo — the same app MOS installs, running for you
  • Free trial — limited free trial for new users
  • Railway account required — a third-party cloud with its own sign-up and usage billing
  • Tied to Railway — MOS runs anywhere and can migrate; this deploy lives on their platform

Good for a test drive, not the destination — this runs on Railway's cloud, not hardware you own, and comes without MOS backups, updates, or your own domain.

Deploy on Railway

Referral link — Railway pays MOS a commission on deploys made through this button, at no extra cost to you.

Privacy assessment

This is the assessment behind Stirling PDF's posture grade, exactly as it ships inside the package. It describes package version 0.2.4 and nothing else — install a different version and its own assessment travels with it. Reviewed 16 July 2026, due for reassessment by 16 January 2027.

What was reviewed

  • Package — version 0.2.4, content digest 586365818b7c… at commit ef5027cc1528
  • Stirling PDF — version 2.10.0 from docker.io/stirlingtools/stirling-pdf pinned at 4d9abedcd57a…

Deliberately outside this assessment:

  • Stirling PDF desktop applications
  • Stirling Cloud
  • Third-party API clients

Evidence

Configured Read from the configuration MOS actually ships.

  • MOS sets SYSTEM_ENABLEANALYTICS=false for the packaged service.

    Source: apps/stirling-pdf/manifest.json

Documented Taken from upstream documentation, policies or source.

What this review does not settle

Published rather than smoothed over. Each of these is a limit of the method, not a finding against the app.

  • No runtime network capture was performed for the pinned image; the assessment relies on package configuration and upstream documentation.
  • Optional tools may contact services beyond the documented timestamp-authority example when explicitly invoked.

Policies read

  • license — Stirling Tools · retrieved 2026-07-16

How this review was produced

  • Method — AI-assisted review, not yet checked by a human
  • Model — GPT-5 (OpenAI)
  • Workflow — assess-app-privacy at 7b1c74a74a2b
  • Repository commit — ef5027cc1528

Technical reference

Maintained alongside the package at apps/stirling-pdf/README.md and rendered here as-is.

Stirling PDF MOS Package

Environment Variables

  • SERVER_HOST: Projected from the app public URL.
  • SYSTEM_ENABLEANALYTICS=false: Disables Stirling PDF analytics (see Privacy Controls).

Volumes And Persistence

  • configs:/configs: Server configuration.
  • custom-files:/customFiles: Custom assets.
  • logs:/logs: Application logs.
  • pipeline:/pipeline: Saved automation pipelines.
  • training-data:/usr/share/tessdata: OCR language data.

Disable preserves these volumes so the app can be started again. Uninstall removes the app containers, routes, Suite Manager state, and these Docker volumes so the package returns to a clean installable state.

Setup

No user inputs are required; the package installs with an empty setup form.

Health Check

  • http://stirling-pdf:8080/api/v1/info/status

Privacy Controls

MOS sets SYSTEM_ENABLEANALYTICS=false, the upstream-supported system-wide control for disabling Stirling PDF analytics and suppressing its analytics consent prompt. This disables known optional PostHog and Scarf telemetry in the assessed 2.10.0 image; it is not evidence that the container makes no outbound requests. User-invoked features such as trusted timestamping can still contact an external service.