EasyPDFLoad vs Smallpdf: an honest comparison

The real difference with Smallpdf: where the work happens

Smallpdf is a server product. You pick a file, the browser sends it over the network, a machine in Smallpdf's infrastructure does the work, and you download the result. Smallpdf's own safety page says files are removed "from our servers after one hour of processing". That sentence only makes sense because the file reached those servers first.

EasyPDFLoad does the work in the browser tab. The page loads pdf-lib and pdf.js, your browser reads the file from disk, and the output is built in memory and handed back as a download. Our page sets a Content-Security-Policy with connect-src 'self', which limits the page's own scripts to talking to our own origin. We have no upload endpoint to send a PDF to.

This changes what you have to trust. With an upload tool you trust the vendor's deletion promise, its staff access rules and its sub-processors. With a tool that runs in your tab you trust that the code does what we say, and you can test that yourself in the Network tab. Our privacy policy says we may use analytics and advertising cookies, so the claim is narrow: the tool does not send your PDF to a server. It is not a claim that nothing about your visit is measured.

The trade is capability. Server software can run heavy engines, keep your history and sync across devices. Software in a tab is limited by your device's memory and by what browsers can do. Both designs are reasonable. Which one fits depends on the file in front of you.

EasyPDFLoad and Smallpdf side by side

Smallpdf's pricing page is built by JavaScript, so the amounts did not appear in the page text we read. We will not guess. Open its pricing page for the current figures. Its plans are listed as Free, Pro, Team and Business, with a 7 day trial.

What Smallpdf does better

Smallpdf covers more ground. Its pricing page lists 30+ tools against our twenty-odd, and it has a mobile app, a Windows app, a Chrome extension and Google Workspace and Dropbox integrations. If you work on a phone or inside Drive, that matters more than anything about architecture.

Our OCR tool runs on your device, loads English only and is slower than a server doing the same job. Its own limits note says long scans can take a while and that phone photos produce more errors. Smallpdf lists OCR among its paid features. For a large batch of scans, or for languages other than English, Smallpdf is the better choice.

Batch operations are shown in its plan table, and so are team seats and a custom Business plan. We have none of that. EasyPDFLoad has no accounts, no shared workspace and no history.

Conversion is the other area to be fair about. We do have PDF to Word and Word to PDF. Ours reads the text layer and writes a .docx with paragraphs and headings. It does not keep columns, tables or images, so expect to reformat. Word to PDF does not reproduce fonts or exact spacing. We have no source comparing the output quality of the two, so we make no claim either way. If Office conversion is the whole job, try both on a sample file.

What does Smallpdf's privacy policy actually say?

Smallpdf's safety page says: "Files are permanently removed from our servers after one hour of processing." Its privacy notice at smallpdf.com/privacy says: "If you access our services via a User Account, we delete User Files within one hour unless you save them to your file storage. When you choose to delete saved User Files, we generally delete them within 14 days."

Those two pages disagree about saved files. The blog says they are deleted within one hour of your deletion request. The privacy notice says generally within 14 days. For logged-out and e-signature files, the notice says it will "generally aim to delete User Files within a reasonable period of time after the last time they were opened", and that the period is extended every time you reopen the file. We found no hour figure for that case.

On access, the safety blog says "No, our employees cannot access your documents." The terms say it will only access content in limited ways: to respond to support requests, to address fraud, security or technical issues, to improve its services and to enforce the terms. The privacy notice also says authorized staff and service providers have access to personal data. Read together, access exists and is limited by purpose.

Smallpdf says its servers are in Ireland. The privacy notice names Cloudflare as a sub-processor and says data may be temporarily stored on Cloudflare servers in the United States or Europe. It states TLS for transfers. We found no statement about encryption at rest. For the wider picture, see our guide Is Smallpdf safe?.

On HIPAA, a Smallpdf blog page says "We're not HIPAA-compliant", and we found no business associate agreement offer. We cover that in Is Smallpdf HIPAA compliant?.

How to verify the Smallpdf claims yourself

You do not need to take our word, or Smallpdf's. The browser records every request a page makes.

1. Open the tool page in a desktop browser and press F12 to open DevTools.
2. Click the Network tab and tick Preserve log, so requests survive page changes.
3. Click the bin icon to clear the list, so you start from a clean slate.
4. Run the tool with a real PDF, one whose size you know, for example a 5 MB file.
5. Sort by Size or look at the Request or Payload column. An upload shows up as a POST request roughly the size of your file.

Do this on both sites with the same file. On a tool that processes in the tab you should see the page's own scripts and assets load, and no request carrying your PDF. Requests for fonts, analytics or ads may still appear on a site that runs them, and our privacy policy says we may. They are small and do not carry your document. If you see a request of about 5 MB leaving your machine, the file was sent. More on this in does a PDF tool actually upload your file.

EasyPDFLoad or Smallpdf: when to use which

Pick Smallpdf when you scan many pages and need OCR that is fast or in several languages, when you work from a phone, when your team wants shared seats, or when the document is not sensitive and the one hour deletion promise is enough for you. A one off public flyer is a fine example.

Pick EasyPDFLoad when the file is a contract, a bank statement or an ID scan that you would rather not upload anywhere, or when you want to merge, split, compress or rotate a file without creating an account or hitting a daily limit.

One caution on compression. Our target size mode re-renders every page as a JPEG, so text is no longer selectable afterwards. There is a keep text selectable mode that only recompresses embedded images. For regulated health data, neither tool replaces advice from your compliance officer.

Straight answers (EasyPDFLoad vs Smallpdf: an honest)

Related to EasyPDFLoad vs Smallpdf: an honest

• Merge PDF: Combine multiple PDF files into a single document in seconds.
• Compress PDF: Shrink a PDF to fit email and upload limits, with a level or target size.
• Split PDF: Split a PDF into separate single-page files or extract a page range.
• OCR PDF: Make a scanned PDF searchable, or pull its text out entirely, using OCR that runs in your browser.
• PDF to Word: Turn a PDF into an editable Word file with its text and headings.
• Redact PDF: Permanently black out sensitive text or images before sharing a PDF.
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• Is Smallpdf Safe? What Their Own Pages Say About Your Files
• Is Smallpdf HIPAA compliant?
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