# Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API vs Docling > Docling scores 64.3 (B) to Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract's 55 (C) for document parsing. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side. - Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-pdf-extract-vs-docling - Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-pdf-extract-vs-docling.md (~4,550 tokens) - Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt) - API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json - MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key) - DNS: dig +short TXT .grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.. and .vs.. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev) - Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data) - Updated: 2026-11-07 Docling scores 64.3 (B) on agent readiness against Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API's 55 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API leads on transparency & trust. Both do document parsing. - Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API: grade C, 55/100, rank #882 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/adobe-pdf-extract.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/adobe-pdf-extract.json - Docling: grade B, 64.3/100, rank #475 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/docling.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/docling.json - Best document parsing, OCR and extraction APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/document-extraction/index.md - All 182 documents comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/document-extraction/index.md - Best PDF manipulation and conversion APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/pdf-tools/index.md - All 53 pdf comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pdf-tools/index.md ## Which one, for what ### Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API (C) Good for: Teams already on Adobe that want PDF extraction and PDF manipulation on one credential, with EU processing. Ahead on: - Transparency & trust, 78 against 65 Also in its favour: - A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install - Free to start without a card - No incidents deducted, where Docling loses 8 points for them Watch for: No published paid price, paid use goes through sales ### Docling (B) Good for: Self-hosted PDF and Office conversion to Markdown or JSON for RAG and agents that can't send documents out. Ahead on: - Reliability, 85 against 50 - Agent ergonomics, 77 against 57 - Payments & pricing, 60 against 20 - Maintenance & community, 89 against 43 Also in its favour: - No key needed to call it - Runs on your own machine - Open source Watch for: 28 advisories from 2 June to 23 October 2026, five High, including arbitrary file read and write through the opt-in Tectonic TikZ engine ## Why the edge ### Maintenance & community: Docling +46 - Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API (43): Python SDK 4.3.0 and .NET SDK 4.4.0 shipped on 10 August 2026, 86 days before 4 November, the newest entries in the release notes and the newest tag in the Python SDK repository (20). Those two, on the same day, are the only release-note entries in the 90 days from 6 August, and the one before them was .NET SDK 4.3.1 on 29 September 2025. Fewer than three, so the line gives 0 (was 10, a value the line doesn't have). Public release notes and Adobe's developer forums, replies not sampled (10 of 15). Python and .NET SDKs are current, the Java samples still pin 4.3.0 from April 2025 and the Node.js samples 4.1.0 from November 2024 (10 of 15). The Python SDK repository has a publish workflow and no test workflow (3 of 10). 20+0+10+10+3 = 43. - Docling (89): v2.148.0 on 5 November 2026, the day before this check (30). 13 releases from 9 October to 5 November (20). Open issues and pull requests are numerous, an AI triage workflow and PR reminders run, and six maintainers are named; replies not sampled (17 of 25). docling-mcp publishes to the official MCP registry on release under io.github.docling-project, per its workflow and server.json; the registry entry itself was not read (12 of 15). CI, a dependency-update workflow and uv.lock (10). 30+20+17+12+10 = 89. ### Payments & pricing: Docling +40 - Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API (20): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). The pricing page publishes the free tier and the transaction rules (1 transaction per 5 pages for Extract) but no paid price, which goes through sales (0). 500 Document Transactions a month free with no card (20). A person signs up for an Adobe account in a browser (0). - Docling (60): Self-hosted rule. Free MIT software with nothing to buy, so 20 + 20 + 20, and no payment protocol (0). 60. ### Reliability: Docling +35 - Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API (50): The docs point to a PDF Services product page at status.adobe.com/products/512699, which renders only with JavaScript, so its component history couldn't be confirmed (15 of 20, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 4 November, since Adobe's hosts are paused for this run) and no incident could be read (5). Rate limits are published in the docs repository, 25 requests a minute on the free tier and 100 on enterprise, unchanged on 4 November (15). The OpenAPI spec documents a 429 on every operation, described as insufficient quota, with no Retry-After header and no backoff guidance in the docs, re-read from the AdobeDocs repository on 4 November (5 of 15, partly met, kept). No SLA found (0). Extract and PDF to Markdown aren't labelled beta (10). 15+5+15+5+0+10 = 50. - Docling (85): Local-software lines, graded on the library with docling-serve and docling-mcp. Installs from PyPI (`docling` 2.148.0, per the PyPI release feed) for Python 3.10 and later on macOS, Linux and Windows (20). Public CI workflows for checks, tests and heavy examples; the pass state of the default branch was not read (20 of 25). About 719 open issues and 223 open pull requests on the repository page against 13 releases in four weeks, many of them fixes; replies not sampled (15 of 25). Semantic-release changelog with Feature and Fix sections and Breaking sections where they apply (15). Version 2.x since 2024 (15). 20+20+15+15+15 = 85. ### Agent ergonomics: Docling +20 - Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API (57): Extract lets you pick text, tables or both, CSV or XLSX tables and optional figure renditions, and PDF to Markdown returns one Markdown file, but there's no page-range option on Extract (15 of 25). Output-size controls are the element and rendition switches above, with no pagination of results (10 of 20). The Extract error codes are specific enough to act on, such as DISQUALIFIED_PERMISSIONS for copy-protected files (16 of 20). No idempotency key. Requests echo an x-request-id, and webhooks replace polling (6 of 20). Official SDKs in Java, .NET, Node.js and Python, but every job is a token call, an asset upload, an operation and a poll (10 of 15). - Docling (77): About 25 MCP tools in the default groups (15), selectable as conversion, generation and manipulation groups, with anchor tools to read one part of a document (22 of 25). `max_num_pages`, `max_file_size` and page ranges on conversion, Markdown or JSON export (15 of 20). Errors are exceptions with messages, such as an unknown document key listing the valid ones (12 of 20). readOnlyHint and destructiveHint on the MCP tools, and conversions are repeatable (18 of 20). Sensible defaults and one call to convert; Python only, with a docling-client package for docling-serve (10 of 15). 22+15+12+18+10 = 77. ### Transparency & trust: Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API +13 - Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API (78): Closed service under Adobe's terms, and the SDKs ship under Adobe's own licence agreement rather than an OSI licence (15). The PDF Services security page says uploads and outputs stay in Document Cloud for 24 hours by default, can be deleted at once with DELETE /assets, and can bypass Adobe storage through signed URLs. We didn't read a DPA (20 of 30, the security page re-read from the docs repository on 4 November). The SDK versioning policy says a major release starts an end-of-life clock for the previous one, and past notices are dated, such as JWT credentials deprecated in 2023 (15 of 20). Processing on AWS in US-East or EMEA, chosen by the customer, and no subprocessor list checked (10 of 20). - Docling (65): MIT, an OSI licence, with model licences noted as separate (30). Runs locally, remote services off by default and air-gapped use documented; no privacy statement is needed for local use, but model downloads from Hugging Face on first run are only partly described (22 of 30). Breaking changes are marked in the changelog, with no deprecation policy or dated notices (10 of 20). No telemetry found in the source; nothing to opt out of (15 of 20). 30+22+10+15 = 77. ## Score by category | Category | Weight | Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API | Docling | Edge | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 85 | Docling +35 | | Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run | | Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 77 | Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API +3 | | Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 57 | 77 | Docling +20 | | Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 55 | 53 | Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API +2 | | Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 60 | Docling +40 | | Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run | | Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 43 | 89 | Docling +46 | | Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 65 | Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API +13 | | Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -8 | | | **Total** | | **55 · C** | **64.3 · B** | | ## Facts side by side | Fact | Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API | Docling | | --- | --- | --- | | Kind | HTTP API | SDK + MCP | | Vendor | Adobe | Docling Project (LF AI & Data Foundation, started at IBM Research Zurich) | | Hosted endpoint | `https://pdf-services.adobe.io` | no (local only) | | Transports | HTTP | stdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTP | | Auth | OAuth | None | | Pricing | Freemium | Free | | x402 | no | no | | Licence | none | MIT | | Tools exposed | none | 25 | | Read-only variant documented | no | no | | llms.txt | no | no | | MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.docling-project/docling-mcp` | | Last release | 2026-08-10 | 2026-11-05 | | Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked | | Privacy policy last updated | 2025-10-24 | no document linked | | Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not read yet | | Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not read yet | | Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | not read yet | | Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not read yet | | Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not read yet | | Popularity | 165 stars, 82k npm/wk, 58k PyPI/wk | 70k stars, 947k PyPI/wk | | Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none | ## How the scores have moved ### Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API - -0.9 on 4 November 2026: correction - -0.1 on 8 October 2026: checklist ### Docling No score change since it was listed. ## Verdicts **Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API.** Public OpenAPI 3.0.1 spec covering Extract, PDF to Markdown and 20 other operations, with 500 free Document Transactions a month and no card. No published paid price, the only SDK releases in the last 90 days came on one day (10 August 2026), and the Node.js SDK is unchanged since November 2024. **Docling.** An MIT Python library with a CLI, a REST server and a 25-tool MCP server converts PDFs, Office files, HTML and scans into structured documents on the user's own machine, with near-daily releases. Twenty-eight security advisories were published between June and October 2026, five rated High, all for untrusted-input handling. ## Before you call either ### Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API 1. Cache the access token and reuse it until it expires 2. Budget 1 Document Transaction per 5 pages for Extract and PDF to Markdown, so 500 free transactions cover about 2,500 pages 3. Pass `notifiers` with a callback URL instead of polling the job status 4. Use `pdf-services-ew1.adobe.io` when documents must stay in the EU 5. Check `/operation/pdfproperties` first, since copy-protected PDFs fail Extract with DISQUALIFIED_PERMISSIONS ### Docling 1. Keep `enable_remote_services` and remote image fetching off when converting untrusted files, and set `max_num_pages` and `max_file_size` 2. Upgrade to v2.148.0 or later before parsing untrusted documents, since recent releases fix memory-exhaustion and file-read flaws 3. Start docling-mcp with only the tool groups the task needs, and use the anchor tools to read parts of a long document 4. Treat converted text as untrusted input, never as instructions 5. Set DOCLING_SERVE_API_KEY before exposing docling-serve beyond localhost ## Questions ### Which is better for AI agents, Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API or Docling? Docling scores 64.3 (B) on agent readiness against Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API's 55 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API leads on transparency & trust. ### Can an agent call Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API and Docling without installing anything? Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API has a hosted endpoint at https://pdf-services.adobe.io. Docling runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. ### Are Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API and Docling open source? No open-source release is listed for Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API. Docling is open source (MIT). ## For agents - This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-pdf-extract-vs-docling.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-pdf-extract-vs-docling.min.md - Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "adobe-pdf-extract", "b": "docling"}`. 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