MuPDF
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 3 of 6 PDF readers by recommenders
Fast, simple PDF reader praised for its clean interface and text handling; AGPL licensing blocks use in non-open-source tools.
Fast, simple PDF reader praised for its clean interface and text handling; AGPL licensing blocks use in non-open-source tools.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 79%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Simple, intuitive, elegant interface
“It is simple and yes it is much easier to just get reading than Koreader”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “KOReader” “the built in mupdf much more intuitive and elegant”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “KOReader” “mupdf may be simple, but it's amazing.”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “KOReader” Very fast PDF reading
“which is very fast and it usually does a better job at formatting pages”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “The surprisingly complex journey to text-selectable client-side generated PDFs” “MuPDF is an excellent PDF reader, the fastest that I have ever tested.”
Comment from 22 Jan 2026 in “ISO PDF spec is getting Brotli – ~20 % smaller documents with no quality loss” Handles Unicode and text extraction
“doesn't handle Unicode in contrast to mutool that does”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Zpdf: PDF text extraction in Zig – 8x faster than MuPDF” “Mutool extracts the text just fine.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Zpdf: PDF text extraction in Zig – 8x faster than MuPDF”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
AGPL license blocks non-open-source use
“the licensing is a huge blocker for using mupdf in non-OSS tools”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Zpdf: PDF text extraction in Zig – 8x faster than MuPDF” “your violation of AGPL on the use of MuPDF”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Free, in-browser PDF editor”
Other PDF readers people recommend
The four most recommended other PDF readers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Preview | 42 | 28 | 60% | 10 | — | — |
| Okular | 12 | 5 | 71% | 5 | — | Approved |
| MuPDFThis page | 11 | 3 | 79% | 7 | — | Approved |
| SumatraPDF | 11 | 1 | 92% | 7 | — | Approved |
| pdf.js | 10 | 4 | 71% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
16 of the 17 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the keys simply aren't cryptographically random”
“It seems to be the only one that does not litter the sdcard directory.”
“I actually use MuPDF for epubs, as well as pdfs.”
“the latter doing all the heavy loading”
“It is simple and yes it is much easier to just get reading than Koreader”
“mupdf may be simple, but it's amazing.”
“the built in mupdf much more intuitive and elegant”
“On the rest, get MuPDF, nsxiv for images”
“I don't personally recommend it for that usecase.”
“which is very fast and it usually does a better job at formatting pages”
“your violation of AGPL on the use of MuPDF”
“MuPDF is an excellent PDF reader, the fastest that I have ever tested.”
“Mutool extracts the text just fine.”
“doesn't handle Unicode in contrast to mutool that does”
“the licensing is a huge blocker for using mupdf in non-OSS tools”
“I'm using 1GB with TWM, DIllo, TUI tools, XTerm, MuPDF and the like.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.