PDFRaw vs PDF24
PDF24 is genuinely free and has been since 2006. The real differences are ads, trackers, tool coverage and platforms, so that is what this page compares.
Last checked August 2026. PDF24 is a product of its respective owner; details below come from their public site and can change.
Side by side
| Feature | PDFRaw | PDF24 |
|---|---|---|
| Free to use without an account | YesAll 113 tools | YesAll tools |
| Paid tier | None, free for everyone | None, free for everyone |
| Ads | No | YesHow the service is funded |
| Third-party trackers | None | Google AdSense, Analytics and others named in their privacy policy |
| Watermarks on output | No | No |
| File retention | Deleted after 2 hours | Usually deleted within 1 hour |
| File size limit | 100 MB per file | No published limit |
| Number of tools | 113 | Around 45 distinct tools, PDF focused |
| Audio, video and ebook tools | Yes | No |
| AI summarize and translate | Yes | No |
| Desktop app | NoWeb only | YesFree, Windows only |
| Server location | Our own servers | Germany / EU data centres |
Where PDF24 is strong
- Free with no ceiling at all: no paid tier, no published limits, and companies are explicitly welcome to use it at no cost.
- A free Windows desktop suite, PDF24 Creator, with a virtual PDF printer, and files handled in it stay on your PC.
- Files uploaded to the online tools are usually deleted within one hour, which is a shorter window than ours.
- A German operator with servers in EU data centres under GDPR, running steadily since 2006.
- A broad PDF toolset including niche jobs like PDF/A conversion, overlay, compare and electronic invoices.
Where PDFRaw is strong
- No ads and no third-party trackers. PDF24 is honest about being ad-funded, but ad-funded still means AdSense and analytics scripts on the pages where you handle documents.
- More than double the tools: 113, including audio, video and image conversion, ebook formats, and transcription, where PDF24 stays within PDFs.
- AI summarizing and translation built in; PDF24 has no AI tools.
- The same product on every platform. PDF24's desktop app is Windows only, so Mac and Linux users are limited to the ad-funded web tools.
- A free library of tax and government form templates with guided filling.
Two different ways to be free
PDF24 is free because advertising pays for it. Their FAQ says so plainly, and it is a model that has kept the service running for nearly twenty years. The cost to you is not money, it is the ad placements and the tracking scripts their privacy policy lists: Google AdSense, Google Analytics, remarketing and more, on the pages where you process files.
PDFRaw is free without the ads: we run everything on our own hardware, which keeps the tools cheap to operate, and there is no paid tier either. No ads, no third-party trackers, no data sold to anyone. Which trade you prefer is a genuine choice, and for many people PDF24's ads are a fair price for a service with no ceiling.
Privacy and file handling
Both services process uploads on their own servers rather than in your browser. PDF24 deletes uploaded files usually within one hour, offers immediate manual deletion, and processes in EU data centres under GDPR with a German company as controller. That is a genuinely good setup, and their one-hour window is shorter than our two.
PDFRaw deletes files two hours after upload, enforced by a storage lifecycle rule, a scheduled cleanup and an expiry check on every download, with an immediate delete button on the result screen. No third-party conversion API ever touches a file, and because there are no ad networks, no tracker sees which tools you use. Our AI tools are the one disclosed exception: they send document text to a large language model to produce the summary or translation, retain nothing afterwards, and every non-AI tool stays entirely on our infrastructure.
If your rule is that a work file must never leave your machine, PDF24 has an answer we lack: the Windows desktop app processes locally. On a Mac or on Linux, neither of us offers that, and the comparison returns to the web tools.
Tools and coverage
Within PDFs, PDF24 is thorough: merge, split, compress, edit, sign, OCR, protect, repair, compare, redact, PDF/A, page numbering, watermarks, and more. Some of those niche tools, like overlay and electronic invoice creation, we do not have.
PDFRaw covers the same core PDF jobs and then leaves the PDF world: image conversion in every direction, audio and video conversion, compression and transcription, ebook formats like EPUB, MOBI and AZW3, and AI summarizing and translation. 113 tools against roughly 45. If your files are always PDFs, the gap matters little; if they are not, it decides the question.
Try it on a real file
No account, no watermark, and the file is deleted two hours after you upload it.
Which one should you use?
Choose PDF24 if
- You are on Windows and want a free desktop suite with a virtual PDF printer that keeps files local.
- You need niche PDF jobs like PDF/A conversion, overlay or compare.
- You want EU-based processing under a German operator, and ads do not bother you.
- You routinely process files larger than 100 MB and do not want to pay anyone.
Choose PDFRaw if
- You do not want ad networks and analytics scripts on the pages where you handle documents.
- You also work with images, audio, video or ebooks.
- You want AI summarizing and translation in the same place.
- You are on a Mac or Linux and the Windows desktop app is no use to you.
Frequently asked questions
Is PDF24 really completely free?
Yes. There is no paid tier, companies may use it free of charge, and no limits are published. It is funded by advertising on the site, which is also why the pages carry ads and ad-network trackers.
Is PDF24 safe to use?
By every published measure, yes: a German company under GDPR, EU servers, SSL transfer, and uploaded files usually deleted within an hour. The caveat is the ad model, which puts Google AdSense and analytics scripts on the tool pages. Their Windows desktop app avoids uploads entirely.
Which service has more tools?
PDFRaw has 113 tools including audio, video, image and ebook conversion and AI summarizing. PDF24 has roughly 45 distinct tools, all centred on PDFs, including a few niche ones we lack such as PDF/A conversion and PDF compare.
Does PDF24 work on a Mac?
The web tools do. The PDF24 Creator desktop app is Windows only, so on a Mac or Linux there is no local-processing option from PDF24. PDFRaw is web only on every platform.