Apache PDFBox
The facts below are what the maker publishes about Apache PDFBox, checked and dated. Our editors have not written about it yet.
Plans and prices
From Apache PDFBox's own pricing page, checked 5 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Apache PDFBox | Free | Open-source Java library · Apache License 2.0 |
The facts
Each one read from Apache PDFBox's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Command-line tools
- The project provides Java command-line utilities, including tools for encryption and decryption, image and text export, merging, splitting, rendering, printing, and PDF inspection.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Dependencies
- PDFBox uses Commons Logging, with Java Util Logging available as a fallback, and its fontbox and xmpbox components provide font handling and XMP metadata support.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Encryption
- PDFBox uses the Java Cryptography Architecture and Bouncy Castle libraries for handling PDF encryption.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Integration
- PDFBox can be added to an application as a Maven dependency using groupId org.apache.pdfbox and artifactId pdfbox.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Java requirement
- The current PDFBox 3.0 release requires Java 8; the 2.0 release requires Java 6.checked 5 Oct 2026
- PDF/A validation
- Its Preflight feature validates PDF files against the PDF/A-1b standard.checked 5 Oct 2026
- PDF operations
- PDFBox can split or merge PDFs, fill forms, print PDFs, convert pages to images, create PDFs, and digitally sign PDFs.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- Apache PDFBox is an open-source Java tool for creating and manipulating PDF documents and extracting content from them.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Release verification
- The download page provides PGP signatures and SHA512 checksums and says downloaded files should be verified for integrity.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Security limitation
- The policy excludes denial-of-service conditions limited to excessive CPU, memory, recursion, or processing time, and recommends controls such as timeouts and sandboxing for applications processing untrusted documents at scale.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Security scope
- The security policy treats untrusted-PDF processing issues as vulnerabilities when they cause remote code execution, security-boundary escape, or unauthorized data access.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Support
- Users can ask usage questions on the community mailing list, while confirmed bugs and enhancement requests can be reported through the JIRA issue tracker.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Text extraction
- PDFBox can extract Unicode text from PDF files.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Validation limitation
- PDFBox does not automatically validate signatures, permissions, PDF/A, or other document properties unless an application explicitly invokes the relevant verification API.checked 5 Oct 2026
The company
- Founded
- 2002checked 28 Sep 2026
- Maker
- Apache PDFBox is an Apache Software Foundation project; the foundation describes itself as a U.S. 501(c)(3) charitable organization.checked 5 Oct 2026
Alternatives to Apache PDFBox
- 1
MuPDF
Free planAndroidiOSWebLinux7.7From $299 a month - 2
ComPDFKit PDF SDK
Free planAndroidiOSWebAPI7.4From $240 a year - 3
Spire.PDF
Free planAndroidiOSWebAPI7.3$999 one-time - 4
Aspose.PDF
AndroidWebAPILinux6.9$1,199 one-time - 5
WeasyPrint
Free planAPILinuxmacOSSelf-hosted6.9From €150 a year - 6
PDFsharp
Free planLinuxmacOSSelf-hostedWindows6.8$499 one-time