Nutrient vs. QuestPDF: Complete comparison for .NET developers

Key differences at a glance

Direct feature comparison

Without Nutrient, you need separate libraries — a PDF reader, Tesseract for OCR, and ZXing for barcodes, plus converters and validators. Nutrient combines these in one SDK.

Code example comparisons

The following examples compare how each library handles common PDF tasks: generating a simple document, extracting text from an existing PDF, performing OCR on scanned documents, and merging multiple files.

Example 1: Generating a simple PDF with text

QuestPDF approach:

var document = Document.Create(document =>
{
    document.Page(page =>
    {
        page.Content().Text("Your invoice content");
    });
});

// Generate PDF and save it to a file.
document.GeneratePdf("document.pdf");

// Generate PDF and return it as a byte array.
var byteArray = document.GeneratePdf();

// Generate PDF and save it to a stream.
using var stream = new FileStream("document.pdf", FileMode.Create);
document.GeneratePdf(stream);

Nutrient .NET SDK approach:

using GdPicturePDF gdpicturePDF = new GdPicturePDF();
// Create a new PDF document.
gdpicturePDF.NewPDF();
// Add a new A4-sized page to the document.
gdpicturePDF.NewPage(PdfPageSizes.PdfPageSizeA4);
// Set the font to be used.
string fontHelvetica = gdpicturePDF.AddStandardFont(PdfStandardFont.PdfStandardFontHelvetica);
// Add text to the page.
gdpicturePDF.SetTextSize(12);
gdpicturePDF.DrawText(fontHelvetica, 10, 10, "Your invoice content");
// Save the PDF document.
gdpicturePDF.SaveToFile("document.pdf");

QuestPDF’s fluent API handles layout automatically. Nutrient requires explicit coordinates for direct control over positioning and page breaks.

Example 2: Extracting text from an existing PDF

QuestPDF:

Not supported — QuestPDF focuses on PDF generation only.

Nutrient .NET SDK:

using GdPicturePDF gdpicturePDF = new GdPicturePDF();
// Load the source document.
gdpicturePDF.LoadFromFile("input.pdf");

// Select the first page.
gdpicturePDF.SelectPage(page);

// Extract the text from the page.
string extractedText = gdpicturePDF.GetPageText();

// Save the extracted text to a file.
File.WriteAllText("ExtractedText.txt", extractedText);

Nutrient loads existing PDFs with LoadFromFile(). It then extracts text from each page using GetPageText(). The SetTextExtractionOptions() improves word boundary detection. QuestPDF generates new documents only — no text extraction from existing files.

Example 3: Performing OCR on a scanned PDF

QuestPDF:

Not supported — QuestPDF doesn’t include OCR capabilities.

Nutrient .NET SDK:

using GdPicturePDF gdpicturePDF = new GdPicturePDF();

// Load the source document.
gdpicturePDF.LoadFromFile("input.pdf");

// Run the OCR process on all pages with maximum multithreading support.
gdpicturePDF.OcrPages("*", 0, "eng", "", "", 300);
// Save the result in a PDF document.
gdpicturePDF.SaveToFile(@"C:\temp\output.pdf");

The code loads a scanned PDF and runs OCR to make the document searchable. The OcrPages() method recognizes text at 300 DPI using Nutrient’s OCR engine. QuestPDF has no OCR capabilities.

Example 4: Merging multiple PDFs

QuestPDF approach:

using QuestPDF.Fluent;
using QuestPDF.Infrastructure;

// Option 1: Merge existing PDF files (version 2024.12+).
DocumentOperation
    .LoadFile("document1.pdf")
    .MergeFile("document2.pdf")
    .MergeFile("document3.pdf")
    .Save("merged.pdf");

// Option 2: Merge generated documents with continuous page numbers. (1,2,3,4,5)
Document
    .Merge(
        GenerateReport("Report 1", 5),
        GenerateReport("Report 2", 10),
        GenerateReport("Report 3", 15))
    .UseContinuousPageNumbers()
    .GeneratePdf("merged.pdf");

// Option 3: Merge with original page numbers (each document keeps its own numbering: 1,2,1,2,3).
Document
    .Merge(
        GenerateReport("Report 1", 5),
        GenerateReport("Report 2", 10),
        GenerateReport("Report 3", 15))
    .UseOriginalPageNumbers()
    .GeneratePdf("merged-original.pdf");

Nutrient .NET SDK approach:

using GdPictureDocumentConverter gdpictureConverter = new GdPictureDocumentConverter();
IEnumerable<string> source = new List<string>(new string[] { @"C:\temp\source1.jpg", @"C:\temp\source2.xlsx" });
gdpictureConverter.CombineToPDF(source, @"C:\temp\output.pdf", PdfConformance.PDF1_5);

Nutrient’s CombineToPDF() accepts different file types — here, a JPG image and an Excel spreadsheet — and converts them before merging. The method handles 100+ formats in one operation. QuestPDF (version 2024.12+) only merges existing PDFs.

Performance characteristics

Each library optimizes for different use cases. QuestPDF focuses on fast PDF generation. Nutrient prioritizes document processing capabilities across multiple formats.

What QuestPDF optimizes for

• Fast PDF generation from code
• Efficient memory for typical documents (fewer than 1,000 pages)
• Fluent API reduces development time
• Hot-reload preview speeds up design iteration

Known limitations:

• Single-threaded document processing limits CPU scalability
• Large documents (6,000+ pages) can consume 7GB+ RAM without .Lazy element
• Font embedding via SkiaSharp increases PDF file sizes

What Nutrient optimizes for

• Processing existing documents (reading, editing, extracting)
• Memory-efficient handling of multi-gigabyte files through disk streaming
• Smaller output files through advanced compression
• Multi-format support (100+ file types) with minimal overhead

Document processing performance:

Pricing comparison

Total cost of ownership comparison

Getting started with Nutrient .NET SDK

Install via NuGet

From the command line:

# Create a new project (optional).
dotnet new console -n <ProjectName>

# Add the package (.NET 8.0 or higher).
dotnet add <ProjectName>.csproj package GdPicture.API

# For .NET Framework 4.6.2, use:
# dotnet add <ProjectName>.csproj package GdPicture

From Visual Studio: Right-click your project → Manage NuGet Packages → Search for GdPicture.API (for .NET 8.0+) or GdPicture (for .NET Framework 4.6.2) → Install.

Configure licensing:

using GdPicture14;

// Set license key once before using any SDK methods.
// Use empty string for trial mode.
LicenseManager licenseManager = new LicenseManager();
licenseManager.RegisterKEY(""); // Empty string activates trial mode

// After purchasing, replace with your license key:
// licenseManager.RegisterKEY("YOUR-LICENSE-KEY");

Additional Nutrient capabilities

• OCR and text extraction — Make scanned documents searchable (see example 3)

• ML-powered data extraction — Extract form fields, tables, and key-value pairs automatically
• Compliance — PDF/A archival conversion and PDF/UA accessibility tagging
• Redaction — Remove sensitive data with regex patterns or manual selection
• Digital signatures — Cryptographic signing with certificates and timestamps
• Format conversion — Convert Office documents, images, or CAD files to PDF

Refer to the Nutrient .NET SDK guides for implementation details.

Use case recommendations

The right choice depends on your project requirements. Here’s when each library fits best, plus a hybrid approach for teams that need both.

Choose QuestPDF for

Choose Nutrient for

Hybrid approach considerations

Some teams run both libraries:

• Use QuestPDF for generating new documents with complex layouts.
• Use Nutrient for processing, OCR, extraction, and compliance features.
• Generate with QuestPDF, and then load into Nutrient for enhancement.

Example implementation:

// Generate base document with QuestPDF's fluent API.
Document.Create(container => { /* Complex layout */ })
    .GeneratePdf("base.pdf");

// Load into Nutrient for advanced processing.
using GdPicturePDF gdpicturePDF = new GdPicturePDF();
gdpicturePDF.LoadFromFile("base.pdf");

// Add OCR, watermarks, or compliance features.
gdpicturePDF.OcrPage("eng", ocrPath, "", 300);
gdpicturePDF.SaveToFile("final.pdf");
gdpicturePDF.CloseDocument();

This requires both libraries in your project, adding complexity but using each tool’s strengths.

What Nutrient consolidates

Comparison summary

QuestPDF is built for generating PDFs from code with a fluent API — free under $1M revenue, $1,999/year for commercial use.

Nutrient delivers document processing across 100+ formats with ML-powered data extraction, OCR, and compliance features.

Try Nutrient free or contact Sales for pricing.

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