# Foxit PDF Services API vs PDFMonkey (slim)

> PDFMonkey scores 59.3 (C) to Foxit PDF Services's 48.3 (D) for pdf generate. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foxit-pdf-services-vs-pdfmonkey.md (~4,100 tokens) · this version ~2,480 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foxit-pdf-services-vs-pdfmonkey.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foxit-pdf-services-vs-pdfmonkey
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-04
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

PDFMonkey scores 59.3 (C) on agent readiness against Foxit PDF Services API's 48.3 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do pdf generate.

- Foxit PDF Services API: D 48.3, rank #1039 of 1349 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/foxit-pdf-services.min.md
- PDFMonkey: C 59.3, rank #637 of 1349 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pdfmonkey.min.md
- Foxit PDF Services API, good for An agent that needs conversion, page operations, protection, redaction, forms and OCR at a flat per-request price with free failures.
- PDFMonkey, good for Agents that fill known templates with JSON to produce invoices, reports, forms and images, and teams that want an agent to author templates through the CLI. Ahead on Reliability, 60 against 47; Agent ergonomics, 75 against 49; Maintenance & community, 81 against 38; Transparency & trust, 78 against 63. Also Free to start without a card.

| Category | Foxit PDF Services API | PDFMonkey |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 47 | 60 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 62 | 61 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 49 | 75 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 40 | 36 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 38 | 81 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 63 | 78 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Foxit PDF Services API | PDFMonkey |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Foxit Software Incorporated | PDFMonkey |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://na1.fusion.foxit.com/pdf-services` | `https://api.pdfmonkey.io/api/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | stdio |
| Auth | OAuth | API key |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Foxit API Service Agreement. The MCP server is MIT per its package.json, with no licence file in the repository | MIT (MCP server, CLI and SDKs) |
| Tools exposed | 42 | 11 |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.foxitsoftware/foxit-pdf-api-mcp-server` | `io.github.pdfmonkey/pdfmonkey-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-07-13 | 2026-10-26 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-06-30 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 12 stars, 47 npm/wk | 97 npm/wk |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, PDFMonkey +43: Foxit PDF Services API 38 (The MCP server's last npm release is 1.1.2 on 13 July 2026, 87 days before this check. The API itself has no dated release notes (20 of 30). One release in the last 90 days and no dated changelog entries (0). On GitHub, two bug reports of 27 August 2026 and a fix submitted on 29 August are still open, and the newest topics on the developer forum have no replies. Support runs through a case form (6 of 25). The server is in the official MCP registry under io.github.foxitsoftware, but the entry lists 0.2.3 from December 2025 (10 of 15). The repository has no CI workflow, no tests and no licence file, and its source stops at 0.2.3 while npm carries 1.1.2 (2 of 10).); PDFMonkey 81 (Read as a closed service with open-source clients. pdfmonkey-mcp-server 1.0.1 on 26 October 2026, @pdfmonkey/cli 2.1.0 on 15 October and docs pages updated 2 November (30). Node SDK 1.1.0 to 1.4.0 between 2 and 5 October, CLI 2.0.0 and 2.1.0 on 13 and 15 October, MCP 1.0.1 on 26 October (20). Blog posts announce changes, and support answers by in-app chat and email within a few hours in CET business hours per the docs; GitHub issue replies couldn't be read (10 of 15). io.github.pdfmonkey/pdfmonkey-mcp in the official registry, 1.0.1 latest (15). The MCP server has unit tests, a release workflow on tags and a prepublish test step, but no CI on pull requests and a loose `^1.0.4` pin on the MCP SDK (6). 30 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 6 = 81.)
- Agent ergonomics, PDFMonkey +26: Foxit PDF Services API 49 (The MCP server at 1.1.2 has 42 tools in about 89 KB of source with no toolsets, the more-than-30 band (5). The API returns a document ID, not the file, and takes page ranges, so responses stay small (15). We averaged the two to 10 because the listing covers both. Page ranges, extract types and image DPI limit output, and nothing lists or pages stored documents (12 of 20). Errors are JSON with a code and a message that names the valid values, and a failed task reports its error (14 of 20). Credits are deduplicated by a `request_id`, but no header for a client to set one is documented, and the MCP tools carry no `readOnlyHint` or `destructiveHint` (6 of 20). Most operations need only `documentId`. No official SDK package was found beyond the MCP server (7 of 15).); PDFMonkey 75 (11 compact MCP tools from a 17 KB tools.ts, and API responses are cards without payload or logs on list and sync endpoints, while a full template fetch is large and the SDK docs warn about it (22). `page[number]`, `q[status]`, `q[document_template_id]`, `q[updated_since]` and `q[search]` on document cards, `q[folders]` on templates and snippets, a `meta` block with pagination, and the CLI's `--json` (18). 401 and 422 bodies name the problem, 403 on an expired download URL is explained, and a quota overrun rejects the create rather than making a draft; the MCP server returns the API's error text (14). No idempotency key on create, so a retried create queues and bills a second document; webhooks are at least once with idempotency guidance; the MCP server sets no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint and `delete_document` is permanent, which the docs leave to the client to confirm (6). Only `document_template_id` and `payload` are needed, and official SDKs exist in two languages (Node.js and Ruby) plus the CLI (15). 22 + 18 + 14 + 6 + 15 = 75.)
- Transparency & trust, PDFMonkey +15: Foxit PDF Services API 63 (A closed service under a dated API Service Agreement (30 June 2025). The MCP server is MIT per package.json with no licence file (17 of 30). The agreement says uploaded documents are deleted within 30 days. The privacy policy says uploads are deleted when processing completes and outputs typically within a day, and it states an effective date of 10 May 2022. It says customer documents are not used to train AI models. No DPA was found (14 of 30). The agreement promises prior notice of changes with no period, and there is no deprecation policy (4 of 20). Server locations are named as the United States, Germany, Canada, Australia and Japan, the API host is a single na1 address, and no sub-processor list for the API was found (9 of 20).); PDFMonkey 78 (Closed service with iubenda terms that name the owner only as PDFMonkey at a Paris address, while the MCP server, CLI, Node SDK and Ruby gem are MIT (20). Retention statements agree across the plans page, the retention page and the data storage page (per-template TTL, 1 day, 7 days or unlimited by plan), the DPA and DsPA of 15 October 2026 are downloadable, and the privacy policy of 16 September 2026 names its processors, though it still lists Heroku where the docs name Fly.io (24). Engine deprecations were announced with a promised heads-up in 2023 and key rotation has a 2-day overlap, but there is no written deprecation policy with notice periods (8). Data locations are named (Paris and Frankfurt) and the DPA carries the approved sub-processor list (18). 20 + 24 + 8 + 18 = 70.)
- Reliability, PDFMonkey +13: Foxit PDF Services API 47 (Read with the hosted lines. status.foxit.com keeps 90-day component history for Foxit's cloud products, but has no component for the API gateway at na1.fusion.foxit.com or for PDF Services (8 of 20). With no component there is no readable incident history for this API (5). Rate limits are published as 15 requests a minute in sandbox mode and 100 in production mode, per application, over a rolling 60 seconds (15). The limits guide asks for exponential backoff on 429 and the credits guide says a retried request is not charged twice, but no Retry-After header is documented and 429 also signals an exhausted credit quota (9 of 15). The trust centre states an aim of 99.99 per cent uptime, and the API Service Agreement gives no availability warranty, so no SLA (0). PDF Services is generally available, with structural extraction marked trial (10).); PDFMonkey 60 (Read with the hosted lines. status.pdfmonkey.io is an updown.io page with six checks (API, dashboard, preview, website, generation latency, queue size) and one month of rolling uptime per check, but no incident write-ups (15). The readable record is the uptime figures (API 99.98 per cent and queue 99.97 per cent since 3 October 2026) and the one incident the vendor wrote up, a slowdown of a little under an hour on 29 September 2026 with a post-mortem on 1 October; the 90-day list itself isn't published, so minor incidents only (20). The docs say there is no hard rate limit, only the monthly quota, so no request-rate numbers (5 for the quota numbers). The Node.js SDK retries 408, 429 and 5xx with backoff and honours Retry-After, and the webhook docs say delivery is at least once and to make handlers idempotent, but document creation has no idempotency key (10). No SLA found in the terms or pricing (0). GA (10). 15 + 20 + 5 + 10 + 0 + 10 = 60.)