Kiosk vs Komodo PDF
Kiosk
github.comKomodo PDF
komodopdf.comSide by side
| Figure | Kiosk | Komodo PDF |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · PDF Readers | 8.8 (#3) | 8.0 (#13) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | The desktop apps support opening PDFs directly and associating Kiosk with PDF files; the extension can intercept PDFs opened in Chrome. | Chat works with OpenAI-compatible providers using the user's own API key; local chat endpoints are also supported. |
| Platforms | The README lists web, macOS, Windows, Android, and Chrome extension builds, and the releases page includes Linux installers. | The available installer targets Windows 10/11 x64; macOS and Linux prebuilt binaries are not ready, but the maker says both can be built from source. |
| Privacy | The project states that it collects no telemetry, uses no cloud processing, requires no account and processes PDFs on the device. | The maker says Komodo has no backend, sends no telemetry, and does not upload documents to Komodo; remote chat sends retrieved document passages to the configured provider. |
| Product | Kiosk is an open-source PDF reader for web, desktop, mobile, and browser extensions. | Komodo PDF is a local-first PDF reader with an AI panel that answers questions about a document using page-cited sources. |
| Reading | Core features include PDF rendering, full-text search with highlighted results, page thumbnails, smooth zoom, and light, dark, and night display modes. | The reader supports continuous scrolling, zoom, fit-width, fit-page, document outlines, and text selection. |
| Support | The Linux release directs users to report bugs by opening a GitHub issue. | The maker links to a contributing guide and a bug-report page on GitHub. |
Plans
In their own words
Kiosk
Kiosk is a free, open-source PDF reader for web, desktop, mobile, and browser extensions. It renders PDFs and offers full-text search with highlighted results, page thumbnails, zoom, and light, dark, and night display modes. Its Chrome extension adds highlighting, underlining, strikethrough, drawing, shapes, and text annotations. The project says PDFs stay on the device, with no telemetry, cloud processing, or account requirement. Android works offline after installation, and the extension release notes also state that offline use is supported. The web app can run locally or be deployed through GitHub Pages as a self-hosted instance. Desktop apps can open PDFs directly and associate Kiosk with PDF files; the extension can intercept PDFs opened in Chrome. The extension supports Chrome 88+, Edge 88+, and Brave, but not Firefox or Safari. The project is released under the MIT License. Its Android release is an early alpha, and the macOS app is ad-hoc signed but not notarized, so Gatekeeper may warn on first launch.
Komodo PDF
Komodo PDF is a free, GPLv3 open-source PDF reader for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Its local-first reader supports continuous scrolling, zoom, fit-width and fit-page views, document outlines, and text selection. An AI panel answers questions using passages indexed in a local vector store. Clicking a citation takes you to the cited passage and highlights it, while a per-page badge marks pages without a text layer, such as scanned images. If the document cannot answer, the assistant can use general knowledge and indicate that fallback. Chat works with OpenAI-compatible providers using your own API key and with local chat endpoints. The maker says Komodo has no backend, sends no telemetry, and does not upload documents to Komodo; remote chat sends retrieved passages to the configured provider. With local ONNX embeddings and a local chat endpoint, documents are said to remain on the laptop. API keys use the operating-system keyring with an encrypted disk fallback. Windows downloads include EXE, MSI, and portable ZIP files, with published SHA-256 checksums. Version 0.1.1 is displayed.