An iText alternative for .NET.

iText and SelectPdf at a glance.

iText is a PDF library for .NET and Java from Apryse; its pdfHTML add-on converts HTML to PDF. SelectPdf.Universal is the cross-platform .NET PDF library from SelectPdf. Both create, edit and read PDF documents: merge and split, watermarks, form filling, text extraction, digital signatures and PDF/A. They differ most in how they turn HTML into PDF and in how they are licensed.

Moving from iText mostly means replacing pdfHTML calls with HtmlToPdf and iText's layout objects with SelectPdf's page elements; both libraries measure in points. The sections below show where SelectPdf comes out ahead, how to migrate iText code to SelectPdf, and what each license means for your application.

Where SelectPdf is ahead.

Measurements from the 2026-10-15 run of the open pdf-benchmarks harness: iText 9.8.0 with pdfHTML 6.3.4 and SelectPdf.Universal 26.5.0 on the same machine.

Every number above, with the rest of the measurements, is in the full table below.

Migrate iText code to SelectPdf.

The same task in both libraries: a web page converted to PDF. pdfHTML has no URL input, so iText's own sample downloads the page and converts the bytes as a stream with a base URI. Install the library and the engine package for your platform:

dotnet add package SelectPdf.Universal
dotnet add package SelectPdf.Universal.Native.win-x64

iText:

using iText.Html2pdf;

var url = "https://example.com/";
using var http = new HttpClient();
var page = await http.GetByteArrayAsync(url);

using var stream = new FileStream("page.pdf", FileMode.Create);
HtmlConverter.ConvertToPdf(new MemoryStream(page), stream,
    new ConverterProperties().SetBaseUri(url));

SelectPdf:

using SelectPdf.Universal;

HtmlToPdf converter = new HtmlToPdf();
PdfDocument doc = converter.ConvertUrl("https://example.com/");
doc.Save("page.pdf");
doc.Close();

Twelve tasks side by side, from hello world to headers and footers, merge, watermarks, forms, text extraction, signatures, PDF/A and an ASP.NET Core endpoint, each built and checked, are in the migration guide on GitHub.

Map iText APIs to SelectPdf.

Both libraries measure in points (1/72 inch). iText's origin is the bottom-left corner of the page; SelectPdf places elements from the top-left corner of the area inside the margins.

The complete mapping is in the migration guide; every class is in the documentation.

iText and SelectPdf licensing.

From iText's How to buy and AGPLv3 license pages on itextpdf.com and SelectPdf pricing, read 2026-10-16. One SelectPdf license covers SelectPdf.Universal and the classic Windows library; check both vendors' pages for current terms before buying.

The full measurement.

iText 9.8.0 with pdfHTML 6.3.4 and SelectPdf.Universal 26.5.0 on every axis of the 2026-10-15 run, on one machine under Windows and Linux, generated from the raw data. The method, per-page numbers and eight other .NET PDF libraries are on the results page; the harness is open source, so every number can be re-run.

Linux, Docker and ARM64.

SelectPdf's engine package bundles the Chromium libraries, so a Docker image built from the official .NET images needs no apt-get lines and runs as root or as a non-root user. Linux x64 and ARM64 each have their own package; Linux needs glibc 2.30 or later (Debian 11+, Ubuntu 20.04+, RHEL 9+). On Alpine, the conversions run in the SelectPdf engine container. iText needs no native packages at all, so its images are smaller; the measured sizes are in the table above.

Step by step: HTML to PDF in Docker on Linux. Both libraries' Dockerfiles are side by side in the C# PDF libraries comparison.