A BentoPDF Alternative: What Matches and Where Your File Goes
On October 21, 2026, we matched the 118 tools on BentoPDF's home page against PulsarKit. 60 had a counterpart, 7 matched only in part and 51 had none, from editing existing text to certificate signatures.
By PulsarKit ·
The same first promise
BentoPDF is a free set of PDF tools that works in your browser. On October 21, 2026, its home page said: “All the processing happens locally on your device.” Under it stood three badges: “No Signups”, “Unlimited Use” and “Works Offline”.
Its code is public under the AGPL-3.0 license, and its README explains how to run your own copy. A commercial license for closed-source use cost $79 once, with $99 struck through. Its about page says: “Development is funded by commercial licenses.”
PulsarKit is a website with more than 200 free tools for files. There is nothing to install, and there is no sign-up, subscription or payment form. The site is paid for by advertising.
The differences are in which PDF jobs each site covers and which of them leave your device.
60 of 118 BentoPDF tools, checked on October 21, 2026
That day, BentoPDF's home page listed 118 tools in seven groups; its site says 100+. For each tool we looked for a PulsarKit tool that gives the same result, not identical features. Both sites change, so this is a count on one date.
At that check, 60 of the 118 had a counterpart. Merge PDF, Split PDF, Compress PDF, Crop PDF, Rotate PDF, Extract Pages, Delete Pages and Add Blank Page match one to one. So do Page Numbers, Header & Footer, Add Watermark, Sign PDF, Compare PDFs, Protect PDF, Unlock PDF, Flatten PDF, Repair PDF and OCR PDF. Conversions match both ways between PDF and Word, Excel, CSV, JPG, PNG, TIFF, text and Markdown. PowerPoint, HEIC, WebP, RTF, EPUB, Pages, ODT, ODS and ODP files turn into PDF on both sites.
Some matches use tools with other names. Their PDF Multi Tool merges, reorders, rotates, duplicates, deletes and splits pages in one window. Here that takes Merge PDF, Organize PDF, Insert blank page and Split PDF. Their PDF Editor covers what our Annotate PDF, Edit PDF and Redact PDF do together. Duplex Collate matches the “Interleave” mode of our Reverse pages tool.
Seven more match only in part and are not counted. Images to PDF takes 17 image formats in one tool, and we convert 6 of them with separate tools. Bates Numbering counts across several files, while our Page Numbers starts again in each file. PDF to Greyscale turns whole pages grey, and our Compress PDF turns only the images grey.
Deskew PDF exists here only as an option of OCR PDF, and Change Permissions only together with an open password in Protect PDF. View Metadata shows more than our Remove PDF Metadata lists before it cleans a file. PDF Workflow Builder runs a chain of steps in one go, while our saved chains repeat a run one step at a time.
What BentoPDF has and PulsarKit does not
The other 51 had no counterpart. One gap is editing: Edit PDF Text, in their words, lets you “Click any paragraph and edit it in place”. Our Edit PDF adds text and images on top of the page and cannot rewrite what is already there.
Signatures go further there too. Digital Signature signs with an X.509 certificate, Validate Signature checks one and Timestamp PDF adds an RFC 3161 timestamp. Our Sign PDF places a drawn, typed or uploaded signature, with no certificate.
Formats are the largest group. Into PDF, BentoPDF also converts SVG, BMP, PSD, JSON, XML, XPS, MOBI, FB2, CBZ, WPD, WPS, ODG, PUB and VSD files, plus email. From a PDF, it also makes WebP, BMP, SVG, CBZ, JSON and JSON for AI pipelines. The rest are specialist tools: bookmarks, page labels, attachments, layers, overlays, booklets, colours, page sizes and more.
Some of their matching tools also do more. BentoPDF's OCR PDF lists over 100 languages and runs in the browser, while our OCR PDF offers fewer and runs on our server. The product differs too: you can run your own copy of BentoPDF. PulsarKit has no desktop program, no version for your own server and no API.
Where your file goes
On October 21, 2026, BentoPDF's about page said: “Every BentoPDF tool runs locally in your browser.” Its Word to PDF page named LibreOffice compiled to WebAssembly, an engine of about 77 MB that downloads on first use. Its OCR PDF page said only the engine and the language packs you pick are downloaded.
On PulsarKit, 43 of the 60 counterparts ran in the browser that day, so the file stayed on your device. That includes Compress PDF, Merge PDF, Split PDF, Protect PDF and the conversions between PDF and images.
The other 17 ran on our server. They are Word, Excel, CSV, PowerPoint, OpenDocument, RTF, EPUB and Pages files into PDF, and PDF to Word, Excel and CSV. Table extraction, OCR, PDF/A and repair are on the server too. By BentoPDF's own pages, those jobs stay on your device there, and here they do not.
Each of our server tool pages says the file is deleted after processing and the result is wiped within about two hours. Those tools take files up to 300 MB, with up to 30 jobs an hour. To see whether any page sends your file away, ours and BentoPDF's included, use three checks in your browser.
Limits and terms, as each site states them
On October 21, 2026, BentoPDF's FAQ said it sets no limits on file size, the number of files or the number of uses. It named your computer's processing power and memory as the only practical limit.
The same FAQ said most tools “will work completely offline” once the site has loaded. Some, like Markdown to PDF with web images, may need a connection.
Browser tools on PulsarKit have no cap on the number of jobs. Each tool page states its largest file, since a browser tool works in your device's memory. That day most of our PDF tools took files up to 300 MB, and Edit PDF and Annotate PDF up to 200 MB.
BentoPDF's FAQ also said it uses no cookies, analytics or tracking scripts. Its licensing page marks personal use as free under AGPL-3.0. PulsarKit takes no payment from you and is paid for by advertising.
What PulsarKit adds, and which one fits
The gap also runs the other way. At that check, BentoPDF listed no tool for PDF to PowerPoint, PDF to ePub, HTML to PDF or splitting a PDF by file size. Its README lists HTML to PDF as a planned feature.
PulsarKit also covers images, video, audio and text. A list of next tools under each result passes the file on, from a PDF into an image or text tool.
If every step must stay on your device, including Word and Excel conversions or OCR, BentoPDF says it does that. It also edits existing text, signs with certificates and gives you a copy to run yourself. PulsarKit does none of these.
Tools used in this article
Compress PDFMake a PDF smaller by re-encoding the images inside it, dropping duplicated objects and clearing metadata, without sending the document anywhere.
Edit PDFPut text, images, shapes and white-out boxes on any page and save the result as a PDF, without the file ever leaving your device.
OCR PDFTurn a scanned PDF into one you can search and copy text from. Runs on our server; files are deleted automatically within about two hours.
PDF to WordTurn a PDF back into an editable DOCX, DOC, ODT or RTF file, with OCR for scans that have no text layer at all. Runs on our server; files are deleted automatically within about two hours.
PDF to PowerPointTurn a PDF into a PPTX presentation, one slide per page, either as an image or with editable text boxes. Runs on our server; files are deleted automatically within about two hours.
Reverse pagesFlip a document so the last page comes first, turn round a single stretch of pages, or weave two scanned halves back together.Read next
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- Split a Large PDF Into Chapters: From the Bookmarks to One File per ChapterSplit PDF does not split by bookmarks, so the chapter pages come from a viewer and go into Custom ranges. What a 120-page book gave us on October 23, 2026: six files in 0.56 seconds.
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