I kept hitting "free limit reached" on PDF tools while job hunting, so I built my own: PdfWord — 22 PDF tools, 100% free, no signup, no watermarks.
The interesting part: there is no backend. Everything runs client-side:
- pdf-lib for merge/split/compress/rotate/watermark — runs in a Web Worker so the UI never freezes
- pdf.js for rendering and text extraction
- Zero server, zero database, zero tracking — files never leave your device
This architecture has a beautiful side effect: no server costs means it can genuinely stay free forever. Most "free" PDF sites need paywalls because they pay for server processing per file. No servers → no per-file cost → no limits.
Performance lesson: my first version loaded every JS library on every page — 4.6MB, 4.1s load on 4G. I switched to selective per-page loading (each tool page only loads what it needs). Now pages are 40–500KB loading in ~0.9s. Same tools, 100x lighter.
SEO lesson: I gave every tool its own page (/merge-pdf, /compress-pdf...) instead of one SPA — 22 indexable pages plus 8 how-to guides, all static.
Honest limitations: no OCR, no password unlock, no PDF/A — those need server-side processing or heavy models. I left them out rather than faking them.
Stack: static HTML + vanilla JS, hosted on Cloudflare Pages (free). Total hosting cost: $0.
It's my first launched project (I'm actually an electrical engineer, not a web dev). Roast it — what's missing?
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