lopdf vs pdfium in Rust — What I Learned Building a PDF App (opens in new tab)

All tests run on an 8-year-old MacBook Air. All results from shipping 7 Mac apps as a solo developer. No sponsored opinion. I built Hiyoko PDF Vault — a macOS PDF tool — in Rust. Choosing the right PDF library was the first real decision. lopdf or pdfium. Here's what I found. lopdf: pure Rust, no dependencies lopdf is pure Rust. No C bindings, no system libraries, no bundling headaches. What it does well: Merge, split, rotate pages Read and write PDF structure Metadata manipulation Bates numb...