Supabase vs Stirling-PDF
Detailed comparison to help you choose the right tool for your needs
S
Stirling-PDF
Self-hosted PDF toolkit with 60+ tools
4.6
Editorial RatingQuick Comparison
Rating
4.5
vs4.6
Starting Price
Free
vsFree
Pricing Model
freemium
vsfreemium
Feature
Supabase
Stirling-PDF
PostgreSQL database
Authentication
Storage
Edge functions
Realtime
REST & GraphQL APIs
Merge & split PDFs
OCR text recognition
Digital signatures
Format conversion
Batch processing API
Self-hosted (Docker)
Supabase Pros
- Open source — no vendor lock-in
- Full PostgreSQL power (not a NoSQL compromise)
- Best free tier in the backend-as-a-service space
- Excellent developer experience and documentation
- Row Level Security for fine-grained access control
Supabase Cons
- Free projects pause after 1 week of inactivity
- Self-hosting is complex to maintain
- Smaller ecosystem than Firebase for mobile
Stirling-PDF Pros
- 60+ PDF operations in one tool
- Dead simple Docker deployment
- Documents never leave your server
- Active development (76K GitHub stars)
- API-first for workflow automation
- Ultra-lite image available (1GB RAM)
Stirling-PDF Cons
- Text editing still in alpha
- Not a full Adobe Acrobat replacement
- OCR requires full Docker image
- No real-time collaborative editing
- Enterprise features are newer
- No native mobile app