PDFRaw vs Sejda
Sejda has one of the best PDF editors on the web and admirably honest free limits: 3 tasks per hour, 200 pages, 50 MB. Here is how those limits compare with ours.
Last checked August 2026. Sejda is a product of its respective owner; details below come from their public site and can change.
Side by side
| Feature | PDFRaw | Sejda |
|---|---|---|
| Free to use without an account | YesAll 113 tools, full limits | YesWith the limits below |
| Free task limit | None | 3 tasks per hour |
| Free file limits | 100 MB per file | 50 MB and 200 pages on most tools |
| Ads | No | No |
| Watermarks on output | No | No |
| File retention | Deleted after 2 hours | Deleted after 2 hours |
| Edit existing PDF text | Yes | Yes |
| Number of tools | 113 | Around 43, PDF focused |
| Audio, video and ebook tools | Yes | No |
| AI summarize and translate | Yes | No |
| Desktop app | NoWeb only | YesMac, Windows and Linux |
| Paid plans | None, everything is free | $5 week pass, $7.50 monthly, $63 a year with desktop |
Where Sejda is strong
- A browser editor that genuinely edits the text inside a PDF, and has been doing it well for years.
- Honest, clearly stated free limits printed on every tool page.
- A $5 week pass that does not auto-renew, which is the fairest short-term pricing in this market.
- A desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux that works offline, so files never leave your computer.
- Useful specialist tools like Bates numbering, deskew, and splitting a PDF by outline or by text.
Where PDFRaw is strong
- No hourly cap. Sejda's free tier stops you after 3 tasks per hour; ours does not count your tasks.
- Double the free file ceiling on most tools: 100 MB everywhere against 50 MB.
- 113 tools against around 43, adding images, audio, video, ebooks and transcription.
- AI summarizing and translation included free.
- A free library of tax and government form templates with guided filling.
The free tiers, plainly
Sejda's free tier is honest and genuinely useful: every tool works, nothing is watermarked, and the limits are stated where you can see them. Three tasks per hour, documents up to 200 pages, and 50 MB per file on most tools, 100 MB on compression. For an occasional single task, you may never notice the fence.
PDFRaw does not meter tasks. Convert a folder of files one after another, merge, compress, and OCR in the same ten minutes, and nothing stops you. The only limit is 100 MB per file, and there is no paid plan behind it.
Sejda's paid escape hatch deserves its own praise: $5 buys a week of unlimited use and does not quietly become a subscription. If you have one heavy week a year, that is a fair deal, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Privacy and file handling
This is the rare comparison where the privacy story is nearly identical, and that reflects well on Sejda. Both services process files on their own servers over encrypted connections, both delete uploads automatically after two hours, and neither shows ads. Sejda BV is registered in Amsterdam and operates under GDPR.
The differences are small. PDFRaw enforces its two-hour deletion three independent ways and never routes a file through a third-party API; our AI tools are the disclosed exception, sending document text to a large language model and retaining nothing. Sejda additionally offers a desktop app on all three platforms whose files never leave your machine, which is a real advantage we do not match.
Editors and everything else
Sejda built its reputation on its PDF editor, and the reputation is deserved: real text editing in the browser, free within the daily limits, years before most competitors managed it. Our editor does the same job, editing existing text with matched fonts alongside shapes, notes, signatures and page organization, and we are content to call this one even and let you judge the feel of each.
Outside the editor, the toolsets diverge. Sejda's 43 tools stay inside the PDF world, with some genuinely useful specialist entries. PDFRaw's 113 tools cover the same PDF core and then extend to image, audio, video and ebook conversion, transcription, and AI summarizing and translation. If your work is PDFs only, Sejda covers you; if not, the extra seventy tools are the argument.
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 Sejda if
- You want an offline desktop app, especially on Linux, where it is nearly alone.
- You need specialist tools like Bates numbering or splitting by outline.
- You have one heavy week and would happily pay $5 once rather than subscribe.
Choose PDFRaw if
- Three tasks per hour is a fence you will actually hit.
- Your files run bigger than 50 MB or 200 pages.
- You also work with images, audio, video or ebooks.
- You want AI summarizing and translation in the same toolbox.
Frequently asked questions
Is Sejda free?
Yes, with clearly stated limits: 3 tasks per hour, 200 pages and 50 MB per document on most tools. Paid plans lift the limits, starting with a $5 week pass that does not auto-renew.
Which is better for editing text inside a PDF?
Both edit existing PDF text in the browser and match the document's fonts. Sejda's editor is longer established; ours is part of a larger free toolbox with no hourly cap. Try the same document in each and keep the one that feels right.
Is Sejda safe?
We think so, as competitors go. It is a Dutch company under GDPR, uploads are encrypted in transit and deleted after two hours, the free tier carries no ad networks we could find, and its desktop app keeps files entirely on your machine.
What does PDFRaw limit that Sejda does not?
Very little in daily use. We have no hourly task cap and a higher 100 MB ceiling, but Sejda's desktop app handles files of any size offline, which is the better answer for very large or very sensitive documents if you are willing to install software.