IXPDF vs iLovePDF: Private, No Limits, No Signup

The single biggest difference is where the file is processed. iLovePDF uploads your PDF to its servers, processes it there, and sends the result back. IXPDF reads the file into memory in your browser, processes it in a Web Worker, and offers the result as a download. The file never leaves your device.

• IXPDF: File stays on your device. No upload, no server roundtrip, no copy on someone else's disk.
• iLovePDF: File is uploaded to iLovePDF servers, processed, and (per their policy) deleted after a few hours. The server sees the decrypted content during processing.

For a throwaway PDF, the difference does not matter. For a contract, a medical record, a tax form, an unpublished manuscript, or anything with a compliance dimension, the difference is the whole decision.

iLovePDF has a broader toolset. As of 2026-09-06, iLovePDF offers roughly 25 tools including OCR, PDF to Word, PDF to Excel, PDF to PowerPoint, and AI-powered summarization. IXPDF offers 15 tools focused on the operations a browser can do well — organize, convert, compress, watermark, edit metadata. IXPDF does not offer OCR or AI summarization because those features need a backend and would require uploading the file, which violates the local-first model.

• Both: Merge, Split, Compress, Rotate, Remove pages, Extract pages, Reorder, Watermark, Edit metadata, PDF to JPG, PDF to PNG, JPG to PDF, PNG to PDF.
• iLovePDF only: OCR, PDF to Word/Excel/PowerPoint, Word/Excel/PowerPoint to PDF, HTML to PDF, PDF to PDF/A, Repair PDF, Unlock (remove password), Organize (visual page sorter), Sign.
• IXPDF only: None that iLovePDF lacks — IXPDF's differentiator is the local-first model, not a feature iLovePDF does not have.
• IXPDF Research Required: Protect PDF (password encryption) and Unlock PDF — both are honest limits of the current browser PDF library.

iLovePDF's free tier caps tasks at 25 MB per file and limits the number of tasks per hour. The Pro plan ($9/month billed yearly as of 2026-09-06) raises the limit to 100 MB and removes the task cap. iLovePDF also requires an account for Pro features and API access.

IXPDF has no file size limit imposed by the tool — the bound is your device's memory, not a server policy. There is no account, no signup, no Pro tier, and no per-hour task cap. The trade-off is that very large files on a slow device take longer than they would on iLovePDF's servers.

• IXPDF file size: Bounded by your device's RAM. A 200 MB PDF works on a modern laptop; a 2 GB PDF may not.
• iLovePDF file size: 25 MB free, 100 MB Pro, larger on Business.
• IXPDF account: None. No signup, no login, no email.
• iLovePDF account: Required for Pro and API; optional for free.
• IXPDF cost: Free.
• iLovePDF cost: Free tier + Pro ($9/mo) + Business.

IXPDF sees nothing. The file is processed in your browser; no file content, file name, metadata, or extracted text is sent anywhere. Analytics events (if GA4 is configured) carry only the tool name and aggregate success/size buckets — never file content.

iLovePDF sees the full file during processing. Their privacy policy commits to deleting files after a defined period, but during processing the file is on their infrastructure in decrypted form. For non-sensitive files this is fine; for sensitive files it is a real cost.

Use IXPDF when the file is sensitive, when you are on a metered connection and do not want to upload 50 MB, when you do not want to create an account, or when you are offline. Use iLovePDF when you need a feature IXPDF does not have (OCR, PDF to Word, AI summarization) and the file is not sensitive. If the file is sensitive and you need a server-side feature, run the feature on your own machine with a local tool (qpdf, ghostscript, Tesseract OCR) rather than a third-party website.