files.co vs PDFsam: do you need to install Java for that?

PDFsam has been around since 2006, which in software years is practically forever. It’s a desktop app, it’s open-source, and it processes your files on your own machine. People who split and merge PDFs all day swear by it. So this isn’t a takedown. PDFsam Basic is a good piece of software.

But it asks something of you that files.co doesn’t, and the free version stops sooner than you might expect. Let’s go through both.

What PDFsam is

PDFsam is a Java desktop application built by Sober Lemur in Sondrio, Italy. You download an installer for Windows, macOS or Linux, install it, and it opens in its own window. Because it runs locally, your PDFs never leave your computer. No upload, no cloud, no account for the Basic edition. That part is genuinely good and we want to be clear about it.

The free version is called PDFsam Basic, released under the AGPL-3.0 license. It covers the core page operations: split, merge, rotate, extract pages and mix. If splitting a big report into chapters or stitching a few scans together is your whole job, Basic does it well and has done for almost twenty years.

The catch is the rest. OCR, content editing, signing, form filling, watermarks, password protection, the page-level conversions, PDF/A, those live in PDFsam Enhanced and PDFsam Visual. Those are paid commercial editions sold on the PDFsam website. So “PDFsam is free” is true for the basics and not true once you need anything past them.

Where the two agree

Here’s the honest part: on privacy, files.co and PDFsam Basic are on the same side.

Neither one uploads your document. PDFsam Basic runs as a native app on your machine and does its work there. files.co runs inside your browser tab using WebAssembly, reads your file into memory, processes it locally, and hands the result back. In both cases your PDF stays with you. There’s no server reading your contract in either model.

If you’re choosing between these two because you don’t want your files sitting on someone’s cloud, good news: you can’t pick wrong on that front. Both keep the file local.

Where they differ

Two real differences, and they matter depending on who you are.

First, the install. PDFsam is a desktop app, and historically it has needed a Java runtime to run. Newer installers bundle one, but you’re still downloading and installing software, granting it permission to live on your machine, and keeping it updated. files.co needs none of that. You open a page in the browser you already have, drop your file, and you’re done. Nothing to install, nothing to update, works the same on a locked-down work laptop where you can’t install anything.

Second, the free ceiling. PDFsam Basic gives you five operations for free and gates the rest behind Enhanced or Visual. files.co gives you all 20 tools for free: merge, split, compress, rotate, reorder, sign, watermark, protect, images to PDF, PDF to images, extract text, page numbers, unlock, crop, and the rest. No paid tier, no upsell. When the work happens on your own device, there’s no server bill to pass on, so there’s nothing to charge for.

So you can think of it like this. PDFsam Basic is free for five things and asks you to install Java. files.co is free for twenty things and asks you to open a tab.

Who should use which

Use PDFsam if you want a long-established native desktop app and you mostly do core page operations. If you’re working through hundreds of files in batches, prefer a real application window over a browser tab, and you’re fine installing software, it’s a reliable choice that has earned its reputation. And if you think you’ll later want professional OCR or editing, you have a clear upgrade path to the paid editions.

Use files.co if you don’t want to install anything, or can’t. You need to split a PDF into separate files, or merge a few into one, and you’d rather not download a Java app to do it. You also want the occasional watermark, password, signature or compression without hitting a paywall. You’re on a borrowed computer, a work machine with locked permissions, or a phone. For all of that, a browser tab is less friction than an installer.

The honest close

PDFsam Basic is good software, and the people who use it daily are right to. It’s private, it’s stable, and it has been doing split and merge well since before a lot of its competitors existed.

The question is just whether you want to install Java and live inside the free five, or open a browser and get twenty tools with no install. If you split and merge on a fixed workstation, PDFsam fits. If you want the same privacy without setting anything up, and you reach for more than the basics now and then, files.co is the lighter way to get there.