Utilitly and iLovePDF cover the same everyday PDF jobs at a similar price: Utilitly's Basic tier is $4.99/mo against iLovePDF Premium at $9/mo, with a $9.99/mo Pro tier above it. Utilitly's difference is coverage — 26 tools, 22 of which run entirely on your device. iLovePDF is the better choice if you need desktop apps, mobile apps, a browser extension or an API.
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| Feature | Utilitly | iLovePDF |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99/mo Basic, $9.99/mo Pro (20% off billed annually) | $9/mo Premium, the only individual tier |
| Free tier | Yes — 12 of 26 tools, no card required | Yes — daily task limits, with ads |
| Where files are processed | In your browser for 22 tools; sent to an external service for 4 | Uploaded to iLovePDF servers for every web tool |
| Tools that run on-device | 22 of 26 | None published for the web tools |
| Team plan | Not publicly available | Business — from $15/user/mo |
| Desktop app | No — browser only | Yes |
| Mobile app | No — browser only | Yes |
Yes. Utilitly offers 12 of its 26 tools free with no card required, covering merge, split, rotate, reorder and delete pages plus the full image set. iLovePDF's free tier is also usable but applies daily task limits and shows ads. Neither free tier asks for payment details.
In practice the free tiers differ in shape rather than size. Merging PDFs, splitting them by page range, rotating pages and deleting pages are free and unlimited on Utilitly, and free but rationed per day on iLovePDF. Going the other way, iLovePDF puts document signing on its free tier while Utilitly charges for it.
At the entry tier, yes. Utilitly Basic is $4.99/mo against iLovePDF Premium at $9/mo, so lighter users pay roughly half. Utilitly's Pro tier at $9.99/mo is marginally above iLovePDF Premium. The saving depends on which tier you actually need, not on the brand.
| Plan | Utilitly | iLovePDF |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 — 12 tools, no card required | $0 — daily task limits, ads |
| Entry paid tier | Basic — $4.99/mo | Premium — $9/mo |
| Top individual tier | Pro — $9.99/mo | Premium — $9/mo (only tier) |
| Annual discount | 20% off | About 33% off |
| Team pricing | Not publicly available | Business — from $15/user/mo |
The useful question is which tier you land on. If you need PDF to Word and Excel conversion and nothing more exotic, Utilitly Basic does it for $4.99/mo where iLovePDF requires the $9/mo Premium tier. If you want OCR, the document editor or Markdown authoring, Utilitly Pro at $9.99/mo is a dollar more than iLovePDF Premium and includes tools iLovePDF does not sell. Both tiers are itemised on the pricing page.
Twenty-two of Utilitly's 26 tools process your file entirely in the browser, with no upload step. The four that do not are Compress PDF, PDF to Office, Office to PDF and Advanced OCR. iLovePDF's web tools upload every file to its servers for processing.
That is a real architectural difference, not a marketing one. A tool that runs in the browser reads the file from disk, changes it in memory and writes the result back — there is no request carrying your document, which you can confirm in the Network tab of your browser's developer tools.
The part worth weighing is the four exceptions. Utilitly names them on this page and on each of their own tool pages: Compress PDF says plainly that the file is transferred off your device, and so do both Office converters and Advanced OCR. iLovePDF does not publish a per-tool split because it does not need one — the answer is the same for every tool it ships.
| Feature | Utilitly | iLovePDF |
|---|---|---|
| Merge PDF | Free, in your browser | Free, on their servers |
| Split PDF | Free, in your browser | Free, on their servers |
| Rotate, reorder, delete pages | Free, in your browser | Free, on their servers |
| Compress PDF | Free tier, processed off-device, account required | Free, processed off-device |
| Watermark PDF | Basic, in your browser | Free, on their servers |
| Protect / unlock PDF | Basic, in your browser | Free, processed off-device |
| Sign PDF | Pro, in your browser | Free |
| PDF to Word, Excel, PowerPoint | Basic, processed off-device | Premium, processed off-device |
| Office to PDF | Basic, processed off-device | Free, processed off-device |
| OCR scanned documents | Pro, processed off-device | Premium, processed off-device |
| Edit original PDF text | Pro, in your browser | Not offered |
| Markdown to formatted PDF | Pro, in your browser | Not offered |
| Image tools (compress, convert, crop, resize) | Free, in your browser | Free, separate image toolset |
| Browser extension | Not offered | Yes |
| API access | Not publicly available | Yes, paid |
Yes, if you choose the tool rather than the brand. Utilitly's 22 in-browser tools never transmit the file, so merging, watermarking or signing a confidential contract keeps it on your machine. Do not use Compress PDF, Advanced OCR or either Office converter for such documents — all four send the file to an external service.
Password-protecting a sensitive PDF and removing a password you already know both run on your own machine: the encryption engine is qpdf compiled to WebAssembly, and neither the document nor the password is transmitted. So do stamping CONFIDENTIAL on every page, adding a signature and marking up a draft.
iLovePDF has desktop apps for Windows and macOS, mobile apps for iOS and Android, a browser extension, and a paid API for bulk processing. Utilitly has none of these and is browser-only. iLovePDF's desktop app also starts and works with no connection at all, where Utilitly has to load its page first.
If your work is bulk, scripted, mobile or offline, iLovePDF is the better product and this page is not going to argue otherwise. Utilitly fits the person working through documents in a browser tab on a laptop who wants a wider free tier and most files staying on the machine.
Yes. iLovePDF's web tools upload every file to its servers, process it there and return the result. Utilitly's 22 in-browser tools upload nothing. The other four — Compress PDF, PDF to Office, Office to PDF and Advanced OCR — are sent to an external processing service, so on those four there is no privacy advantage over iLovePDF; each says so on its own tool page.
Twelve of the 26: merge, split, rotate, reorder pages, delete pages, PDF to image, image to PDF, compress PDF, and the compress, convert, crop and resize image tools. Compress PDF is free and unmetered but requires a signed-in account and sends the file to an external service.
Not from a cold start, but it keeps working once it is open. Utilitly is a website, so the page has to load before anything runs — iLovePDF’s desktop app does not, and if you regularly work with no connection that is a real reason to choose it. What Utilitly does do is carry on after the connection drops: all 22 in-browser tools serve their processing engine from utilitly.com rather than a CDN, so you can pull the plug mid-session and still merge, split, rotate, crop, watermark, encrypt or read a scanned page. A few tools load their library on the first press of the button, so that first run needs the connection; every run after it does not. The four tools that upload — Compress PDF, PDF to Office, Office to PDF and Advanced OCR — need a connection throughout.
No. Utilitly has no publicly available API. iLovePDF sells API access for automated and bulk processing, so for programmatic workflows iLovePDF is the appropriate choice.
Utilitly has 26 tools across PDF and image work, 22 of which run on your device. iLovePDF publishes a comparable catalogue of around 25 PDF tools plus a separate image toolset, all of which are processed on its servers.
Utilitly tiers, tool count and processing locations are taken from the product itself. iLovePDF pricing and features are as published on ilovepdf.com, verified July 2026. “Not publicly available” and “None published” mean we could not confirm the item from public sources.
Start with whichever job brought you here — no daily task limit on the free tier.
Merge a PDF in your browser