Excise vs RedactFile

Excise is a free, open-source PDF editor for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Its central feature is permanent redaction: it removes text, images, and vector graphics from PDF content rather than placing a visible cover over them. By default, the cleanup also removes metadata, attachments, JavaScript, thumbnails, and hidden layers, and reports those removals. The app handles search, text selection and copying, annotations, page organization, Bates numbering, file-size reduction, and AcroForm filling, flattening, and creation. Its command-line tools support batch work and stable JSON output; `unredact` checks for leaked redacted text, while `audit` looks for text beneath opaque overlays. Excise reads and writes AES-128 and AES-256 encryption and inspects digital signatures against the operating system trust store. Signature inspection does not check revocation or evaluate timestamp and long-term validation material. Dynamic XFA layouts are experimental and cannot be filled. Downloads include packages for Apple Silicon macOS, Windows 10/11 x64, Ubuntu/Debian, and x64 or ARM64 Linux; builds are unsigned, not notarized, and lack auto-update.

RedactFile is a web and API service for identifying and removing sensitive information from documents and images before sharing them. Its OCR and PII detection can find names, emails, phone numbers, IDs, account data, and addresses, including in scanned PDFs. Users can review matches, add redaction marks themselves, apply changes, and export a protected copy. Methods include black boxes, blur, pixelation, masking, replacement labels, and removal. File cleanup tools check metadata, comments, author data, OCR layers, annotations, bookmarks, embedded files, forms, and scripts. Some supported browser workflows process files locally; upload, dashboard, public-link, and API workflows may use RedactFile infrastructure and storage. The external v1 API supports OCR and structured extraction through JSON requests with document URLs and an API key; documentation includes JavaScript and Python examples and signed asynchronous webhooks. RedactFile publishes tests and a checker for examining recoverable text and hidden file data. It cautions that the service is not a compliance certification or guarantee that every document is safe to disclose, and recommends manual validation for regulated disclosures. The free plan costs nothing and has a 2MB upload limit, 10 daily uploads, 500MB storage, and no API.