BentoPDF
Shares rank 4 of 7 PDF tools by recommenders
Free, open-source PDF toolkit that runs in the browser without uploads, so files stay private. Some tools are slow on large downloads, and bugs come up.
Free, open-source PDF toolkit that runs in the browser without uploads, so files stay private. Some tools are slow on large downloads, and bugs come up.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
Other PDF tools people recommend
The four most recommended other PDF tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pdfwithlove | 10 | 10 | 50% | 2 | — | — |
| qpdf | 8 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| PaperPilot | 8 | 7 | 53% | 1 | — | — |
| BentoPDFThis page | 6 | 2 | 75% | 3 | — | — |
| MinerU | 6 | 1 | 86% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
7 of the 8 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“i like the interface but the bugs are irritating”
“It runs in the browser, is private and no-fuss.”
“Impressive array of functions, haven't tried yet, but potentially the most useful tool/s of all is missing - named destinations”
“some of their tools are very slow, cause of large downloads to the client”
“open source and does all that and more for free”
“All with similar design, similar implementation, similar HN post. Literally AI slop.”
“You are including AGPL components in your project which itself is AGPL.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.