PaperPilot
PaperPilot is an MCP server that lets your AI assistant merge, split, compress, and OCR PDFs on your own machine.
What it is good for
- Merging and splitting PDF files without uploading them
- Compressing large PDFs to smaller file sizes
- Reading text out of scanned PDFs with OCR
- Letting an AI assistant handle PDF edits on your computer
At a glance
- Who it is for
- Setup
- Guided command-line setup
Level 4 of 5. You copy and paste commands into a terminal by following the instructions. Comfortable territory for vibe coders.
- Cost
- Free and open source
- Type
- MCP server or connector
- Tasks
- Works with
- Codex, Claude Code, Kimi Code, Pi, Claude Desktop, Cursor
Momentum
- Rank this week
- #27
- Best rank
- #27 week 44, 2026
- Stars gained last week
- +604
- GitHub stars
- 748
GitHub numbers as of Nov 2, 2026. Updated weekly.
On Hacker News
- PaperPilot, Zero-Cloud, Pure-Rust PDF Engine with WASM and MCP 236 points, 88 comments, Oct 26, 2026
Ranking history
Official links
Setup steps are on the official pages. We do not repeat them here, since they change.
Questions
- Is PaperPilot free?
- Yes. It is free and open source.
- Do I need to know how to code to use PaperPilot?
- You do not need to write code, but setup means copying and pasting commands into a terminal by following its instructions.
- What does PaperPilot work with?
- According to its own documentation, it works with Codex, Claude Code, Kimi Code, Pi, Claude Desktop, and Cursor.
- What is PaperPilot good for?
- Merging and splitting PDF files without uploading them, compressing large PDFs to smaller file sizes, reading text out of scanned PDFs with OCR, and letting an AI assistant handle PDF edits on your computer.
Similar agents
- Repowise
Repowise is a codebase index that lets coding agents answer questions about code, callers, risk and tests without re-reading every file.
- google_workspace_mcp
Google Workspace MCP is an MCP server that lets AI assistants like Claude control Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Drive and other Google apps for users who run office work across Google services.
- graphify
Graphify is a skill that turns a project's code, docs, and PDFs into a queryable map for AI coding assistants, so they can answer questions without rereading every file.
- Headroom
Headroom is a library, proxy, and MCP server that shrinks tool outputs, logs, and files before they reach an AI model, cutting token costs for agents.
- AnythingLLM
AnythingLLM is an app that lets you chat with private documents and run AI agents on your own computer or server.
- MemPalace
MemPalace is a local memory system that stores your AI conversation history and searches it later for people who want their AI tools to remember past work.