ChatDOC vs PDF-ChatGPT

ChatDOC is a web document assistant that lets you converse with uploaded files in natural language. It can summarize, extract, locate, analyze, and rewrite content from PDFs, Word files, Markdown, ePub, TXT, and scanned documents. A folder upload supports questions spanning multiple documents. Responses include page and reference citations, links that highlight source passages, and highlighted numerical values for checking answers. ChatDOC provides an API for embedding document processing and generated responses in other applications. Its PDF Parser API recognizes text, tables, and images and converts PDF material into formats such as JSON. Processing requires an internet connection. The service runs on the web, through a browser extension, and via API. A free plan is available; Pro costs $8.99 a month or $89.90 a year, with larger limits.

PDF-ChatGPT is a free, open-source, self-hosted application for asking natural-language questions about PDF files and receiving answers with document and page citations. It can index multiple PDFs and show document status, page counts, and chunk counts. Semantic search uses a persistent FAISS index, with a relevance threshold and optional per-document scoping. Answers come from OpenAI’s Responses API and can stream token by token; SQLite keeps conversation history for follow-up questions. The browser interface renders Markdown, offers dark and light themes, and adapts to mobile and tablet layouts. Uploaded PDFs, the index, and conversation history are stored locally, but text is sent to OpenAI for embeddings and chat generation. An OpenAI API key with billing enabled is required, and token use is metered. Uploads must be PDFs under 25 MB; scanned PDFs without extractable text need OCR, which is not included. The default setup is single-tenant and has no login, so the maker advises against public exposure without authentication or network restrictions. It runs locally or on documented hosting platforms, with persistent storage needed across redeploys.