I Built 21 Free PDF Tools That Never Upload Your Files - on a $0 Stack

Описание и применение

Автор создал 21 бесплатный инструмент PDF, работающий полностью в браузере без загрузки файлов на сервер, используя стек Next.js, Vercel, Supabase, pdf-lib, pdf.js и Tesseract.js.

Задача

Free PDF tools typically require uploading files to a server, raising privacy concerns and uncertainty about data retention.

Результат

The project demonstrates that privacy‑first PDF tools can be built entirely client‑side with zero hosting cost, challenging the industry norm of server uploads.

Рабочий процесс

• 1. User selects a PDF via the File API.
• 2. The file is read as an ArrayBuffer.
• 3. Web Workers process the PDF with pdf-lib or pdf.js for manipulation.
• 4. For OCR, Tesseract.js runs in a Web Worker to extract text.
• 5. Results are displayed and downloadable without any server interaction.

Доказательства

upload your file, wait, download it back, hope nobody kept a copy.

Источник

every tool runs client‑side in the browser.

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Next.js on Vercel's free tier

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Supabase free tier (auth + a tiny bit of backend)

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pdf-lib and pdf.js for in-browser PDF manipulation

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Tesseract.js for client-side OCR

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The business model is "no business model" (for a year)

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I underestimated how much people care about this.

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