A Free PDF24 Alternative Without Ads
A free PDF24 alternative makes sense if you want pages without ads, or prefer that common tasks happen on your own device. According to PDF24's website in September 2026, its free tools are funded by some advertising on its web pages, and its online tools process files on PDF24 servers.
ProPDF is a free website with 21 tools and no ads. Of these, 13 process the file in your browser and the other eight send it to a server in Paris that deletes it when the task ends; the chat keeps the text and the conversation in your tab, not on the server. It has no desktop app and no OCR, which matters if you rely on PDF24 Creator or PDF OCR today.
Why choose ProPDF
- No ads on any page, and Google Analytics cookies are set only with your consent
- 13 tools work on your device, so the file is not sent to any server
- Runs in a web browser, with nothing to install
- No account and no daily quota, on all 21 tools
- A free chat with a PDF, powered by a Claude model through Amazon Bedrock with a European inference profile
- Your files come out without a watermark
Key features
Organize pages on thumbnails
Drag pages into a new order, rotate them a quarter turn at a time, or delete a selection, with live thumbnails; wait for the last one before you change or save anything. Organize can duplicate a page and has a Reset changes button, but it cannot add pages from another file; merge the files first for that.
Images to PDF and back
JPG to PDF puts several images in one file, on A4, Letter or image-size pages, with the orientation and margin you choose. PDF to JPG and PDF to PNG render the pages you pick at 72 to 288 dpi, and several pages download as a ZIP.
Compare two versions
Compare shows two PDFs side by side and, in text mode, highlights the words that were added, removed or changed; it compares sets of words, so a change in word order can go unnoticed. It runs in your browser and shows the result on screen only; Text mode needs PDFs with real text, while the Visual mode also shows scans side by side.
Page numbers and watermarks
Page numbers offers six positions, Arabic or Roman numerals, a "Page 1 of 10" style format, a start number and pages you can skip. Watermark adds text or a PNG or JPG image on all pages or a selection; text can be centered, placed in a corner or tiled, and an image centered or placed in a corner.
Protect and unlock
Protect encrypts a PDF with AES-256, so the password is required to open it. Unlock removes the password and restrictions from a file whose current password you know; for a file that opens freely but blocks printing or copying, that means the permissions password its author set.
PDF24 tools and their ProPDF match
- Compare PDFs: Compare, in your browser.
- Redact PDF: Redact, which removes the text under the boxes you draw, and the form fields, comments and links under them, for files up to 4 MB; the document title and author, bookmarks and the files attached to the document stay in the file, and the accessibility tags of a tagged PDF lose the redacted text too, except in rare cases.
- Sign PDF: Sign, with a signature you draw, type or import, placed in your browser.
- Create PDF: to make a PDF from a document or from images, ProPDF has Word to PDF for .docx, .doc, .odt and .rtf files, and JPG to PDF.
- PDF OCR, Webpage to PDF and PDF Overlay: no equivalent in ProPDF.
- For the rest of a PDF routine, ProPDF also has Merge, Split, Organize, Compress, PDF to Word, Protect, Unlock, Watermark and Page numbers.
If you use PDF24 Creator today
PDF24 describes PDF24 Creator as desktop software for Windows that provides its tools as an offline version. ProPDF has nothing equivalent: it is a website, it needs an internet connection, and its pages load when you open them.
What you get instead is nothing to install on any computer, including a shared or managed one where you cannot add software. The 13 browser tools process files on your device, so large files do not have to travel over the network.
What PDF24 offers that ProPDF does not
- The offline version: PDF24 Creator, presented as Windows software, has no ProPDF counterpart.
- OCR: PDF24 lists PDF OCR to make scans searchable, while ProPDF has no OCR.
- Webpage to PDF and PDF Overlay, which ProPDF does not offer.
Where each ProPDF tool processes your file
On your device, without sending the file: Merge, Split, Extract pages, Organize, Rotate PDF, Delete pages, Watermark, Page numbers, Sign, Compare, JPG to PDF, PDF to JPG and PDF to PNG. Their only size limit is your device's memory.
On a server in Paris (AWS, eu-west-3), over HTTPS: Compress, PDF to Word, Word to PDF, Edit, Redact, Protect, Unlock and Chat with PDF. They accept files up to 4 MB, and each file is processed on the server, then deleted as soon as the task ends.
Two cases deserve a note. Edit sends a PDF of up to 4 MB in full when it opens and after each change; a larger PDF is not sent. Chat with PDF keeps the document text and the conversation in your tab and sends them again with each question; the server keeps neither once it has answered.
Which One to Choose
ProPDF can replace PDF24's online tools for common tasks if you want no ads and prefer 13 tools that keep the file on your device. Keep PDF24 if you depend on PDF24 Creator's offline version, on OCR for scans, or on Webpage to PDF and PDF Overlay.