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Stirling PDF
A self-hosted, all-in-one PDF toolkit — merge, split, compress, convert, OCR, watermark, and edit PDFs from a browser, with no files ever leaving your own server.
This guide is synthesized from Stirling PDF's own official documentation, linked above — always cross-check exact package/version names there before running these commands on a production server, since distro and project versions move over time.
1Pull and run the official image
Stirling PDF ships one container with the whole toolkit and web UI built in.
docker run -d \ --name stirling-pdf \ -p 8080:8080 \ -v ./stirling/data:/usr/share/tessdata \ -v ./stirling/config:/configs \ -e DOCKER_ENABLE_SECURITY=false \ --restart unless-stopped \ stirlingtools/stirling-pdf:latest2Open the web UI
Visit the server on port 8080 to access every tool -- merge, split, compress, convert to/from Word, add/remove passwords, OCR scanned pages, and more.
http://your-server-ip:80803(Optional) enable login security
DOCKER_ENABLE_SECURITY=true turns on Stirling PDF's built-in user accounts and login page, useful once it's reachable outside your own LAN.
Without security enabled, anyone who can reach the port can use every tool -- fine on a trusted home network, not fine exposed directly to the internet.