PDF24 Creator vs Online Tools: Local File or Upload

Name the product before you name the privacy claim

PDF24 uses two names for two paths. The tools home page says the online tools process files on special PDF24 servers, and that you can install PDF24 Creator if you prefer to work offline and receive all PDF24 tools as an offline version. The Creator download page says Creator brings all PDF24 tools as an offline version and that all files remain on your PC. The FAQ says Windows users can work offline by installing Creator, and that users of other operating systems should continue to use PDF24 Tools. A Mac, Linux, phone or Windows browser can open the online tools. Only the Creator download is the Windows desktop program. The comparison with Stirling PDF on this site is about who operates a server. It does not identify which PDF24 window is open.

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An installed app can still be the online tools

The install page, checked on 25 October 2026, is the page that separates the icon from the processing. On a computer it says to install PDF24 Tools with Chrome or Edge: click the install icon, or use the browser menu, then Install. The app appears in the Start menu or the Applications folder and can be pinned to the taskbar. On Android it says to open tools.pdf24.org in Chrome and use Install app or Add to home screen. On iPhone and iPad it says to use Safari, or, since iOS 16.4, Chrome, Edge or Firefox, then Add to Home Screen. The page says the tools are the same as the website. Its answer to working without internet is no: the app loads the tools from the internet, and many tools process files on PDF24 servers. Offline work, it says, is the free PDF24 Creator on Windows. The Creator download page also invites you to install PDF24 Tools as an app on a smartphone after Creator itself is installed. That invitation is a second product. Installing Creator does not turn the phone app into Creator.

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Creator 11.31.1 is the listed Windows build, and 9.20.0 has no Toolbox

The download page lists PDF24 Creator 11.31.1 for Windows 11 and Windows 10, with the date 2026-10-08 beside the version. The changelog heading for 11.31.1 is 08.10.2026, the same day. It says to choose EXE for one computer and MSI for corporate computers, and that Creator can also be installed via the Microsoft Store. This guide did not open the Store listing, so it does not state a Store version. The same download page lists 9.20.0 and says the 9.x version does not include the Toolbox, OpenJDK, and Webview2. The FAQ says Linux and Mac are not currently supported. The manual says a Mac version is not available and points Mac users to the online tools. The 11.31.1 notes also describe a toolbox fix for a crafted invoice file that could run script, and they recommend that users update. That is a reason to read the version in the installed program. It is not a test of this guide’s computer, because Creator was not installed here.

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The offline sentence has other sentences beside it

The Creator FAQ says: files remain locally on your PC and are NOT uploaded to the Internet, and then, “The topic of data protection or GDPR is therefore not a problem.” The manual preamble says all files stay on your PC and GDPR is not an issue here. Those are the vendor’s sentences. This guide does not treat that sentence as a legal conclusion. The same Creator page lists follow-up tools: Save, Print, Email, Fax. Email and Fax are send actions, and the online-services terms say they do not apply to PDF24 Fax or PDF24 Creator. The manual documents two registry values whose printed default is 0, defined there as enabled: NoOnlinePdfTools for the online PDF tools links in the app, and NoOnlineConverter for the online converter if no local converter is available. The changelog for version 11.30.1, printed as 24.04.2026, says the PDF Form Editor attempted to upload the file to the PDF24 online service even though that was unnecessary from the Creator toolbox, that Creator processes files locally, and that this uploading behavior was incorrect and has been improved in that version. Version 11.31.1 is later than 11.30.1. This guide did not install either version, so it does not report a new upload test. It also does not turn the registry values into click-by-click steps.

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The online pages do not share one deletion sentence

Use the page that matches the tool. The home page says files are completely removed after a short time. Edit PDF says the editor will not store files longer than necessary and that files and results are removed after a short time, and that the app runs on PDF24 servers in the cloud. OCR says the text is recognized on PDF24 servers in the cloud, that files are not stored longer than necessary, that they are deleted after a short period of time, and that transmissions are SSL secured. Merge uses the same short-period wording and says the files are merged in the cloud on PDF24 servers. The FAQ says transfers are encrypted, that files are automatically deleted from the processing server within one hour after processing, that PDF24 does not store or evaluate them, and that processing servers are in EU data centers. It also says uploaded files are deleted after one hour and can be removed manually immediately. The English terms, as of 08.10.2026, say the user uploads documents to the provider’s server, processing is carried out there, and the copy is completely deleted after one hour. That page says the English text is for information only and the German version is legally binding. The German text was not read for this guide. The privacy policy says files are usually deleted one hour after uploading or creating the results, that storage can be longer when the work takes more than one hour, that PDF24 does not look at or evaluate the files during that hour, and that backups of these files are generally not created. Those differences stay as printed.

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One online tool has a different deletion path

The privacy policy’s section on AI recognition of invoice data is not the general rule. It says the e-invoice tool offers to recognize invoice data only if you expressly agree each time. Without that consent, it says, no data is transmitted to the AI service. It names the Gemini API of Google Cloud EMEA Limited. It says the PDF is stored at Google only for the recognition and is deleted by PDF24 immediately afterwards; if that deletion fails, Google deletes the file automatically after 48 hours at the latest. It says Google stores prompts and responses for 55 days to detect abuse, and that processing at Google may take place outside the EU, in particular in the USA. On PDF24’s own servers, it says, the file and the result are deleted after one hour at the latest, as with the other tools, and PDF24 does not log the recognized invoice data. Creator’s offline FAQ does not mention this tool. Agreeing to it is an upload to the service the privacy policy names, even if the rest of the window is a PDF24 page.

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Free of charge is several sentences, not one price

No page checked for this guide displays a dollar amount. The Creator FAQ says Creator can be used completely free of charge and without any restrictions, including by companies, authorities and agencies. The tools FAQ says the tools are free of charge and without restriction, financed by discreet advertising, and that Creator is also free of charge and without limitation, including for companies. The home page says the tools are free of charge and without any restrictions, achieved via some advertising, and that there are no artificial limits. The install page says the app costs nothing, like the browser tools, without registration and without watermarks. No output file was opened for this guide, so that watermark sentence is the page’s sentence, not an inspected file. The English terms say the online products are currently provided free of charge and that the user is not entitled to free provision in the future. They also say the products may be used for private and commercial purposes provided that processing documents with the products is not itself the core of the user’s commercial activity. Those terms say they do not apply to PDF24 Creator or PDF24 Fax. The FAQ says a data processing agreement is required for the PDF24 Tools when you are not a natural person using them only for personal or household activities and the documents contain personal data of third parties. It says no such agreement is required for Creator because the data is processed on your own computer systems. That is the condition the FAQ prints. It is not a determination of whether your file meets it.

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What an offline label does not decide

The Edit PDF page says editing the text already in a PDF is not easy, and that the best way it describes is to convert the PDF to Word, edit there, and convert back. Merge says Creator is an offline PDF solution with a tool for merging PDF files. OCR says recognition on that page happens on PDF24 servers and points to Creator as an alternative OCR solution because online OCR is time-consuming. None of those sentences is a saved file from this guide. The PDF24 Online save guide on this site is one browser overlay from 25 September 2026, and the separate Browser OCR and redaction records are online records as well. They are not a Creator result. Adding text, merging pages, recognizing a scan and changing a sentence that is already in the file remain different jobs. Choose the entry point first, then check the job on a non-sensitive copy.

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Scope of this guide

We read the linked PDF24 pages on 25 October 2026 and wrote this guide from them. We did not install, run or time PDF24 Creator or the online tools, open a PDF in them, upload a file or save an output for this guide, and nothing here is a hands-on test result. Menus can differ by version and window size; check what your own screen shows. The pages checked describe the tools as free of charge. They do not display a separate dollar price.