Application hosting

Hosting Stirling PDF

A self-hosted PDF workspace and API for merging, splitting, converting and processing documents. Hosting the server gives a team a document-processing service whose capacity depends on the files and tools used.

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Understand the setup

Check runtime, storage and installation requirements before choosing a server.

See requirements

Budget your resources

Allow room for the operating system, database and your actual workload.

Open resource planner

Build your shortlist

See the cheapest plans that meet the starting size, then check each provider's page.

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Must have

Installation requirements

A compatible Docker environment for the official server quickstart.
Network access arranged for the intended users and application clients.

Recommended

Planning guidance

Use the resource planner to size a server for your workload.

No official hardware minimum for Stirling PDF

PDF size, page count, OCR and concurrent operations affect resource use. A successful small conversion does not establish capacity for a batch of large scanned documents.

Deploy with

Supported paths

Official Docker image
Documented server deployment

The host must provide

Runtime

Document processing: Tool dependencies depend on the chosen distribution and feature

Storage

Persistent data

Allow temporary disk space for uploaded documents and generated outputs. Preserve configuration and any required retained documents according to the deployment arrangement rather than relying on a disposable container.

Step by step

Plan a Stirling PDF deployment

Choose the distribution

Review server and enterprise feature availability for the selected release before planning authentication or integrations.
Official instructions
Control access

Run the server behind the intended network and HTTPS access arrangement; configure protection before accepting sensitive files.
Official instructions
Size document work

Try representative files and operations before increasing concurrency. Preserve required configuration when replacing the server image.
Official instructions

Security

Before you go public

Restrict document processing to authorized users and clients.
Review temporary-file retention and access to sensitive uploads.

Cost

Beyond the server price

Budget compute and temporary storage for document operations.
Paid server features and hosting costs are separate decisions.

Want the full monthly bill? Use the hosting cost calculator. It keeps unknown charges visible.