PDFluent vs Poppler

Poppler is a GPL-licensed C++ PDF rendering library. It excels at rendering but has no form filling, no PDF creation, and requires C++ compilation.

Poppler (libpoppler) is a well-known open-source C++ library for rendering and extracting text from PDFs. It is widely used in Linux desktop applications and PDF viewers. However, Poppler is read-only — it cannot create or modify PDFs, has no form filling support, and requires C++ compilation. It is also licensed under GPL-2.0, which constrains its use in proprietary applications. PDFluent is a Rust crate that reads, writes, fills, and manipulates PDFs, compiles to WASM, and ships under the AGPL with a commercial licence for closed-source use.

Side-by-side

PDFluent
Rust
use pdfluent::PdfDocument;

fn main() -> pdfluent::Result<()> {
    let mut doc = PdfDocument::open("invoice.pdf")?;

    // Extract text from page 1
    let text = doc.page(1)?.text()?;
    println!("{}", text);

    // Fill a form field (Poppler cannot do this)
    doc.form_mut().set_text("invoice_number", "INV-2024-001")?;

    // Save the modified PDF (Poppler cannot do this)
    doc.save("invoice_filled.pdf")?;
    Ok(())
}
Poppler
C++
#include <poppler/cpp/poppler-document.h>
#include <poppler/cpp/poppler-page.h>
#include <iostream>

int main() {
    // Requires libpoppler-cpp-dev installed on system
    poppler::document* doc =
        poppler::document::load_from_file("invoice.pdf");
    if (!doc) {
        std::cerr << "Failed to open PDF" << std::endl;
        return 1;
    }

    // Extract text
    poppler::page* p = doc->create_page(0);
    std::vector<poppler::text_box> boxes = p->text_list();
    for (const auto& box : boxes) {
        std::cout << box.text().to_latin1() << std::endl;
    }

    // Form filling: not supported by Poppler
    // PDF creation: not supported by Poppler
    // Saving changes: not supported by Poppler

    delete p;
    delete doc;
    return 0;
}

Feature comparison

FeaturePDFluentPoppler
Language / runtimeRust, no runtimeC++, requires system library
LicenseAGPLv3 or commercialGPL-2.0
PDF creation
PDF editing / modification
Form filling (AcroForm)
XFA forms
Text extraction
WASM / browser support
Serverless deploy (no system lib)
Price published, bought with a cardN/A (open source)
Published pricingN/A (open source / GPL)

Pros and cons

PDFluent

  • Reads and writes PDFs — create, modify, fill, save
  • Form filling for AcroForm and XFA
  • Commercial licence lifts the AGPL copyleft — no GPL propagation
  • Compiles to WASM for browser-side processing
  • No system library to install or distribute
  • Younger codebase — less production history than Poppler
  • Pixel-accurate rendering roadmap is in progress

Poppler

  • Mature, widely-used library with a long track record
  • Good text extraction and basic rendering quality
  • Free to use under GPL-2.0 for open-source projects
  • Available via system package managers (apt, brew)
  • Read-only — cannot create or write PDFs
  • No form filling (AcroForm or XFA)
  • GPL-2.0 license restricts use in proprietary software
  • Requires C++ compilation and system library installation
  • No WASM support — cannot run in a browser
  • Raw pointer API requires manual memory management

When to use each

Choose PDFluent

PDFluent fits when you need to do more than read — fill forms, create PDFs, edit content, or deploy without system dependencies. It is the right choice for commercial products where GPL licensing is a constraint, and for any project targeting serverless or browser environments.

Choose Poppler

Poppler is a reasonable choice for an open-source desktop application or script that only needs to render PDFs to images or extract text, and is willing to live with GPL licensing. Existing Linux desktop applications that already depend on Poppler have little reason to migrate if writing and forms are not needed.

Bottom line

Poppler is a solid read-only rendering library for desktop applications and scripts that only need to extract text or render pages. If you need to create PDFs, fill forms, edit content, or deploy to WASM or serverless, Poppler cannot do it — and its GPL license adds legal complexity for proprietary products. PDFluent covers all of these cases in a single Rust crate.

Frequently asked questions

Can Poppler write or modify PDFs at all?
No. Poppler is a read-only library. It can render pages to images and extract text, but it cannot create new PDFs, modify existing ones, or fill form fields. PDFluent handles all of these operations.
Does the GPL license on Poppler affect my application?
If you link against Poppler directly in a proprietary application, GPL-2.0 requires your application to also be GPL-licensed. This is a real constraint for commercial products. PDFluent carries the same copyleft under the AGPL, but sells a commercial licence that lifts it: €999 a year for one organisation, bought on the pricing page.
I only need text extraction — is PDFluent overkill?
No. PDFluent's text extraction works through the same simple one-liner as the rest of its API. You pay no complexity cost for features you do not use.
Does PDFluent work on Linux without system packages installed?
Yes. The core has no system library dependencies and runs on Linux without installing any packages. Native dependencies are opt-in: ONNX Runtime for the balanced extraction tier, and a system tesseract binary for OCR. Poppler requires libpoppler-cpp to be present on the target system.
SDK · Install

Try it on your own files.

Free under the AGPLv3, or a commercial licence if you would rather not publish your own source.