Stirling PDF Self Hosted

# Visit: https://www.stirling.com/

# To install on your home server (recommend Debian based Linux):
sudo apt remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc 2>/dev/null

sudo apt update


sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg

sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings



curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg



echo \

  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \

  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \

  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null



sudo apt update

sudo apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER



docker run hello-world  (may need to use sudo)



mkdir -p ~/stirling-pdf

cd ~/stirling-pdf



sudo nano docker-compose.yml

# Add:
services:

  stirling-pdf:

    image: stirlingtools/stirling-pdf:latest-fat

    container_name: stirling-pdf

    ports:

      - "8080:8080"

    volumes:

      - ./trainingData:/usr/share/tessdata           # OCR language packs

      - ./extraConfigs:/configs                       # Custom configs

      - ./logs:/logs                                  # Application logs

      - ./customFiles:/customFiles                    # Custom static files

      - ./pipeline:/pipeline                          # Pipeline configs

    environment:

      - DOCKER_ENABLE_SECURITY=false                  # Set to true if you want login/auth

      - INSTALL_BOOK_AND_ADVANCED_HTML_OPS=false      # Set to true for Calibre-based operations

      - LANGS=en_US                                   # UI language

    restart: unless-stopped




mkdir -p trainingData extraConfigs logs customFiles pipeline

docker compose up -d

docker compose ps

docker compose logs -f

# Open a browser and visit:
http://localhost:8080



# Default Credentials:

Username: admin
Password: stirling


# Firewall config (optional):

sudo apt install -y ufw

sudo ufw allow 22/tcp        # SSH - don't lock yourself out!

sudo ufw allow 8080/tcp      # Stirling-PDF

sudo ufw enable



When to use each version:

Standard (latest) - Use this if:

✅ You want all PDF features
✅ You have normal server/computer specs
✅ You're not sure which to pick
Fat (latest-fat) - Use this if:

📦 You need every possible conversion format
📦 You want all optional tools included
📦 Disk space isn't a concern
Ultra-Lite (latest-ultra-lite) - Use this if:

💾 Running on very limited hardware (Raspberry Pi, low-end VPS)
💾 Want fastest startup time
💾 Only need basic PDF operations
To use a different version, just change the tag:


docker run -d stirlingtools/stirling-pdf:latest-ultra-lite