Choose the license that fits your needs.
pdfup is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). You are free to use, modify, and distribute pdfup in your open-source projects.
Use pdfup for free in open-source projects where you make your source code publicly available.
Modify the source code and distribute your version, as long as you comply with AGPL-3.0 requirements.
Any modifications or derivative works must also be licensed under AGPL-3.0 and made publicly available.
pdfup is a modified version of BentoPDF (github.com/alam00000/bentopdf), originally created by Alam and licensed under AGPL-3.0.
Modifications by the pdfup project began on 2025-10-12 and continue to the present. They consist of rebranding, the addition of per-tool landing pages and documentation, blog content, and site-level SEO and accessibility changes. The complete corresponding source of this modified version is published at the GitHub link above.
pdfup is an independent fork. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the BentoPDF project or its author.
The pdfup codebase is distributed under AGPL-3.0 as a whole. There is no separate commercial license offered by pdfup. If you want to use this code in a closed-source or proprietary product, AGPL-3.0 requires you to release your complete corresponding source code under the same license.
pdfup is a fork of BentoPDF and does not hold the copyright in the BentoPDF-derived code. Only the upstream author can grant an alternative license for it, so pdfup cannot offer one.
Contact the BentoPDF project directly — see bentopdf.com/licensing. pdfup is not a party to that agreement and receives nothing from it.
You may use, modify and self-host pdfup commercially at no cost, as long as you keep it under AGPL-3.0 and offer the complete corresponding source to your users.
Questions about attribution or reuse? Contact us.
Use this quick reference chart to determine if your use case requires a commercial license.
| Use Case | License Required |
|---|---|
| Personal use (not hosting as a service) | AGPL (Free) |
| Open-source project with publicly available source code | AGPL (Free) |
| Public website where you share your full modified source code under AGPL | AGPL (Free) |
| Educational/research project with publicly shared code | AGPL (Free) |
| SaaS or web application (closed-source) | Commercial |
| Internal company tool/dashboard (source not shared with users) | Commercial |
| Commercial product (keeping source code private) | Commercial |
| Network service where source code is not accessible to users | Commercial |
| Any app where you want to keep modifications private | Commercial |
Note: rows marked "Commercial" mean the use case is not permitted under AGPL-3.0 and would require an alternative license. pdfup does not offer one — any such license must come from the BentoPDF project.
When using pdfup under AGPL-3.0, you must comply with the following requirements:
You should mention our open-source and include AGPL license details in the PDF metadata. You should also retain the producer line in all PDFs created or modified using our open-source.
Any modifications to our open-source must be disclosed under the AGPL. This includes sharing the modified code with any users interacting with it.
Usage of our open-source Community Edition must be limited to AGPL-compliant environments, where all AGPL requirements are fully respected.
You cannot deploy our open-source as part of a server-based application or service without disclosing your own application's full source code under AGPL to any users interacting with it.
⚠️ These use cases require a commercial license.
If you're using pdfup on a public website and have not modified the source code, you do not need a commercial license. However, if you modify pdfup in any way and make it available to users over a network, the AGPLv3 requires you to provide your modified source code to those users. If you want to keep your modifications closed-source, or if you are integrating pdfup into a proprietary or commercial product, you would need an alternative license. pdfup cannot issue one — obtain it from the BentoPDF project at bentopdf.com/licensing.
If your internal tool is closed-source and not shared publicly, the AGPL-3.0 license still requires that you make the source code of any network-accessible service using pdfup available to its users. If you cannot or do not want to do that, the alternative license has to come from the BentoPDF project — see bentopdf.com/licensing.
If you modify pdfup and deploy it as a network service (e.g., a web application), you must make your modified source code available under AGPL-3.0. If you do not want to share your modifications, you would need an alternative license, which must be obtained from the BentoPDF project rather than from pdfup.
No. pdfup does not sell commercial licenses, and there is no way to purchase
one from us. pdfup is a fork of BentoPDF and does not own the copyright in the
BentoPDF-derived code, so it cannot grant an exception to AGPL-3.0 for it.
If you need a proprietary or closed-source license, you have to obtain it from
the BentoPDF project itself, which does offer commercial licensing:
bentopdf.com/licensing. Any such agreement is between you and that
project, not with pdfup.
If instead you are happy to comply with AGPL-3.0 — including offering the
complete corresponding source to your users — you can use, modify and
self-host pdfup commercially at no cost. Contact us if anything about
attribution or reuse is unclear.
We're here to help. Reach out to discuss your licensing needs.
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