PDFBox Alternative: Why developers choose to pay for JPedal

Apache PDFBox and JPedal both date back to the early 2000s, when Ben Litchfield started writing PDFBox and Mark Stephens created the original version of JPedal. PDFBox originally focused on extraction, while JPedal was aimed at viewing and rendering, both PDF libraries in Java. The two exchanged emails as they figured out how to write PDF parsers in Java from scratch, with minimal documentation to go on.

Ben moved on to other projects and donated PDFBox to the Apache Foundation, where it continues to evolve as an open source project. Mark built a team at IDRsolutions to develop and maintain JPedal as a commercial product. He still scathingly reviews any code changes we propose.

What PDFBox does well

• Text and metadata extraction
• PDF manipulation such as splitting, merging, rotating pages
• Digital signatures
• AcroForm handling
• Basic page rendering to JPEG or PNG

Reasons to look at JPedal instead

Rendering quality

PDFBox converts pages to images, but the output on complex documents is inconsistent. Non-standard fonts, transparency effects, and mixed colourspaces trip it up.

Embedded Swing Viewer

JPedal includes a complete Java PDF Viewer to integrate into your applications. You are not rasterising pages yourself and building a viewer around them from scratch.

More advanced PDF Manipulation

JPedal includes a large number of additional features such as reducing filesize, linearization and encryption and enhanced features for splitting, merging, and page manipulation.

Commercial support

JPedal users get full commercial support from the developers who actually write the software and know the code. You are not trying to patch the code yourself or relying on Community support

Pricing

No software is ever totally free, as we’ve covered in a separate post (Is JPedal free?) looking at total cost of ownership in more detail.

PDFBox is open source, so there’s no upfront license cost, but there’s no vendor support either. Factor that in separately.

JPedal charges a one-off fee that includes 12 months of support. After that, support and access to new releases are available on a yearly basis. The JPedal license fee funds a full-time team that develops JPedal and provides commercial support to its users.

Many JPedal clients have been relying on the software and support in their commercial projects for up to 20 years, which makes the license fee a rounding error in their costs.

PDFBox vs JPedal: feature comparison

Frequently asked questions

Is it possible to talk to the JPedal developers?

You can book a call with our developers directly on Zoom, and you may well get Mark himself.

Is JPedal a drop-in replacement for PDFBox?

The APIs differ. Most features require 2-3 lines of new code and we have documentation on all features.

Can JPedal do everything PDFBox does?

For the main use cases, yes: text extraction, manipulation, signatures, forms. If your workflow depends on specific PDFBox features, check the docs or ask us directly.

How does JPedal licensing work?

JPedal is a one-off commercial license, not a subscription. Server or OEM licensing is a flat fee per product. Full pricing is here.

For a broader comparison of Java PDF libraries, see our Java PDF library buyer’s guide. For the build-vs-buy decision, see our Build vs. Buy comparison.

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ExtractClippedImages.writeAllClippedImagesToDir("inputFileOrDirectory", "outputDir", "outputImageFormat", new String[] {"imageHeightAsFloat", "subDirectoryForHeight"});

final PdfManipulator pdf = new PdfManipulator();
pdf.loadDocument(new File("inputFile.pdf"));
pdf.addPage(1, PaperSize.A4_LANDSCAPE);
pdf.addText(1, "Hello World", 10, 10, BaseFont.HelveticaBold, 12, 1, 0.3f, 0.2f);
pdf.addImage(1, new BufferedImage(), new float[] {0, 0, 100, 100});
pdf.rotatePage(1, 90);
pdf.apply();
pdf.writeDocument(new File("outputFile.pdf"));

Viewer viewer = new Viewer();
viewer.setupViewer();
viewer.executeCommand(ViewerCommands.OPENFILE, "pdfFile.pdf");

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ExtractTextAsWordList.writeAllWordlistsToDir("inputFileOrDirectory", "outputDir", -1);

PdfMerge.mergeFiles(new File("inputFile1.pdf"), new File("inputFile2.pdf"), new File("outputFile.pdf"));

PdfManipulator.splitInHalf(new File("inputFile.pdf"), new File("outputFolder"), pageToSplitAt);

PrintPdfPages print = new PrintPdfPages("C:/pdfs/mypdf.pdf");

if (print.openPDFFile()) {
    print.printAllPages("Printer Name");
}

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ExtractClippedImages.writeAllClippedImagesToDir("inputFileOrDirectory", "outputDir", "outputImageFormat", new String[] {"imageHeightAsFloat", "subDirectoryForHeight"});

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ArrayList resultsForPages = FindTextInRectangle.findTextOnAllPages("/path/to/file.pdf", "textToFind");

java -jar jpedal.jar --inspect "inputFile.pdf"

PdfSigner.signPdf(
        "inputFile.pdf",
        "outputFile.pdf",
        "keystorePassword",
        "keystoreFile.p12",
        "signerName",
        "signerLocation",
        "signingReason",
        ACCESS_PERMISSION.P1
);