PDF24 Tools and PulsarKit: What Matches and What Is Missing

Price is not the difference

PDF24 does not charge for its online tools, so price is not what sets an alternative apart. On October 20, 2026, its FAQ said the tools are “free of charge and without restriction” and financed by advertising. Its tool pages said “No registration required”.

PulsarKit works on the same terms. On the same date it had more than 200 free tools for files in the browser, with no sign-up, no subscription and no payment form. The site is paid for by advertising, and results carry no watermark.

So the useful questions are different: which jobs each site covers, where your file goes, and which limits each site states.

74 of 108 PDF24 tools, checked on October 20, 2026

On October 20, 2026, PDF24's All Tools page showed 125 cards in 12 groups, or 114 different pages once repeats are removed. Three are Windows programs: PDF24 Creator, PDF Printer and PDF Reader. Three more only link to other cards: Create PDF, PDF Converter and Create invoice. That leaves 108 online tools.

For each one we looked for a PulsarKit tool that does the same job, not one with identical features. On that date, 74 of the 108 had a counterpart. The core PDF jobs match: merging, splitting, compressing, editing, signing, page tools, watermarks, page numbers, OCR, repair, PDF/A, passwords, redaction and flattening.

Conversions match both ways for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, ODT, images, text, Markdown, RTF and EPUB. ODS, ODP and web pages match one way, into PDF. PDF24 often gives each file extension its own card, so one PulsarKit tool can cover several. On that date, Word to PDF covered three cards and PDF to Word covered four, since it saves DOCX, DOC, ODT or RTF.

At that check, four more cards came close and are not counted. View as PDF also shows Word and Excel files; PDF Viewer opens PDFs only. Search in PDFs searches many files at once; the viewer searches one. PDF to grayscale turns whole pages gray; Compress PDF can turn only the images gray. Copy from PDF copies a clicked table; PDF to Text saves all the text as .txt.

What PulsarKit does not have

On October 20, 2026, 30 of the 108 cards had no counterpart. Four are e-invoice tools: Create electronic invoice, PDF invoice to e-invoice, XML e-invoice to PDF and Validate e-invoice. PulsarKit's Invoice Generator makes a PDF and a CSV, not a ZUGFeRD or XRechnung file.

Six rework the pages: Create booklet, Halve PDF pages, Change PDF page size, PDF Overlay, Assemble PDF and Rasterize PDF. Five check or edit a file's internals: Bookmark PDF, Change PDF document information, Set PDF viewer preferences, Verify PDF signatures and Check PDF/A.

Five build something new: Write PDF, Create PDF form, Create card, Create PDF job application and Create PDF with a camera. PulsarKit's PDF Forms adds fields to an existing PDF, but no PulsarKit tool builds a form from scratch or scans a page with a camera.

Eight are conversions PulsarKit does not offer: Publisher to PDF, PUB to PDF, ODG to PDF, SVG to PDF, PDF to SVG, PDF to HTML, PDF to ODS and PDF to ODP. The last two cards, Convert to PDF and Convert PDF to ..., take many formats in one tool. PulsarKit has a converter per format pair, and the Convert File button on its home page opens the right one.

Where your file goes

PDF24's home page says it plainly: “The PDF24 Online Tools process files on special PDF24 servers.” On October 20, 2026, its FAQ said uploaded files are “automatically deleted from the server after one hour”. Its privacy policy puts those servers in the EU, except for an optional AI step that reads invoices.

On that date, six PDF24 file tools said otherwise: Compare PDFs, Search in PDFs, Copy from PDF, Create photo collage, Create card and Validate e-invoice work in the browser without uploading. For offline work, PDF24 Creator is free but “can only be installed on Windows systems”.

On PulsarKit, most tools run in your browser, and the file does not leave your device. A server tool says so on its page. On October 20, 2026, 47 of the 74 shared jobs stayed on your device here. PDF24's pages said the same for four of them: Compare PDFs, Create photo collage, Generate QR code and Generate password.

The other 27 ran on our server that day: mostly Office conversions, plus OCR, repair, PDF/A, EPUB and web pages. For these jobs both sites upload the file. Each of our server tool pages says the file is deleted after processing and the result is wiped within about two hours. PulsarKit has no desktop program.

Limits, as each site states them

PDF24's home page says “There are no artificial limits at PDF24”, and its tool pages say “No time restrictions”. On October 20, 2026, we found no file size number in the text of its tool pages or its FAQ.

PulsarKit puts no cap on how many files browser tools process. Each tool page states its largest file, since a browser tool works in your device's memory. On October 20, 2026, most PDF tools took files up to 300 MB. Server tools took up to 300 MB per file and 30 jobs an hour.

Where to start

For everyday jobs, Merge PDF, Compress PDF and Compare PDF run on your device. The result of one tool goes straight into the next, with no trip through your downloads folder.

PulsarKit also covers what PDF24's tools page does not list, such as video and audio. If you need e-invoices, booklets or an offline program for Windows, PDF24 has them and PulsarKit does not.