PDF Candy vs PDFMerged

PDF Candy is a PDF toolkit for editing, converting, merging, splitting, compressing, signing, protecting and managing documents. Its tools include text editing, annotations and OCR, while AI features can summarize, chat with and translate PDF documents. Users can import files from Google Drive or Dropbox and save updated versions back to cloud storage. PDF Candy Desktop is a Windows download with 35 tools that can operate offline; the company lists 98 PDF tools and 19 languages. Access is listed for web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. The free plan has page and hourly restrictions, limited file size, no batch processing and a desktop operations limit. Students and teachers can get one year of PDF Candy PRO online at no cost, with no hourly limits and uploads up to 500 MB. PDF Candy says files are deleted from its servers within two hours after processing. The free plan is available, with paid access from $6/mo.

PDFMerged combines multiple PDFs into one document in a browser and can include JPG, JPEG, and PNG images. Files can be dragged into a preferred order before merging. It requires no installation or account sign-up, and processing happens client-side; the maker says files are not uploaded to or stored on its servers. The Free plan costs nothing and allows unlimited file size and PDF count, subject to available device memory. Password-protected PDFs must be unlocked first. The maker says merging preserves original PDF quality, resolution, and formatting. Its privacy policy says it collects anonymous counts of files merged, language preference, basic browser information, and merge timestamps, but not IP addresses, file names, or file contents. The policy also says it does not use third-party analytics, advertising, or tracking services. The tool is browser-based and listed for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, and web. The terms say the service is provided as available and uninterrupted access is not guaranteed.