Rivoli PDF / No Ghostscript PDF .NET

PDFs in .NET without Ghostscript

Ghostscript in a .NET pipeline means an external process to install and patch, and an AGPL license to explain to legal. Rivoli PDF writes PDFs directly from managed code: no shelling out, no interop layer, no system package.

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Install and generate

No system libraries, no headless browser, no per-platform setup. Rivoli.Pdf 0.1.0 targets .NET 8 and .NET 10.

Terminal
dotnet add package Rivoli.Pdf
Program.cs 
using Rivoli.Pdf;
using Rivoli.Pdf.Builders;

var doc = Document.Create("Quarterly Report", "Acme Corp");
doc.AddSection()
    .H1("Quarterly Report")
    .AddParagraph("Revenue grew 18% over the prior quarter.")
    .AddTable(t => t
        .Header("Quarter", "Revenue")
        .Row("Q1", "$1.2M")
        .Row("Q2", "$1.5M"));
doc.SavePdf("report.pdf");

Everything happens in-process: layout, font embedding, compression, encryption. There is no external binary to locate at runtime and no process boundary to marshal across.

The output

Real output from the runnable samples in the Rivoli PDF repository.

PDF/A-1b archival document generated by Rivoli PDF listing conformance requirements
The PDF/A-1b sample: embedded fonts, XMP metadata with the PDF/A identifier, and an sRGB output intent, ready for veraPDF validation.

How we compare

The managed options, compared honestly.

Capability Rivoli PDF iText PDFsharp
Free for small companies AGPL only
Entry price (per developer) $299 Quote Free
Royalty-free redistribution included
Fully managed (no native deps)
Deterministic output
PDF/A-first
JSON document model + change tracking
Round-trip fidelity harness
Cross-language roadmap 5 planned Java/.NET

Competitor prices are researched approximations (June 2026); several vendors are now quote-gated, so some figures are historical or third-party. Rivoli PDF is pre-1.0: document creation is feature-complete, while full parsing of arbitrary PDFs and rasterized rendering are partial and on the near-term roadmap.

Pricing

Free for individuals and for organisations under US$1M in annual gross revenue. One perpetual per-developer license for everyone else.

Free
$0 forever

Full library, no watermark, no page limits. For individuals and organisations under US$1M in annual gross revenue.

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Founder license
$299 per developer · perpetual

Buy once, use forever. Royalty-free redistribution included, and the early-access rate locks in for life.

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Full details on the product page and in the license terms.

Removing Ghostscript from the pipeline

Ghostscript usually sits in .NET stacks as a converter or post-processor. Both roles have managed replacements.

  1. 01 Replace generate-then-convert flows with direct generation: build the document model and save PDF 1.4 through 1.7 natively.
  2. 02 For archival conversion, render with PdfAMode set to PdfA1a or PdfA1b instead of post-processing with gs.
  3. 03 Delete the process-invocation code and its error handling; renderer exceptions are catchable .NET exceptions.
  4. 04 Close out the AGPL review item: Rivoli PDF is source-available with a plain commercial license.
  5. 05 Before migrating reading-heavy workflows (filling existing forms, rendering pages to images), check current support in the docs gallery: Rivoli PDF is pre-1.0 and strongest at authoring.

The full migration guide, with concept mappings and before/after code, lives in the documentation.

Start free. Pay only when you're big.

Install the package today. When your company crosses the US$1M line, the Founder rate locks in for life.

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