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Zro7 vs Smallpdf vs iLovePDF vs CloudConvert: Privacy & Speed

A side-by-side comparison of Zro7 and the three biggest cloud file-conversion services. What each one uploads, where it stores your files, and how fast it actually is.

Zro7 never uploads your files. The comparison below reflects each vendor's own public documentation.

If you convert PDFs, images, or videos on the web, four services turn up in every search: Smallpdf, iLovePDF, CloudConvert, and now Zro7. Three of them upload your file to a server and run the conversion there. Zro7 runs the conversion in your browser with WebAssembly and never uploads the file. This post lays out the practical differences in privacy, speed, size limits, offline behavior, and pricing.

The one-line summary

Smallpdf, iLovePDF, and CloudConvert are cloud services with paid tiers. Zro7 is a browser app with no accounts and no server-side processing. If your file is sensitive, or you want to work offline, or you just don't want to sign up, Zro7 is the alternative.

How each service handles your file

Smallpdf

Uploads every file to Smallpdf's servers (hosted in Switzerland). Files are stored for up to one hour before automatic deletion. Requires a free account for anything beyond two documents per day and a paid Pro plan (~$9/month) for batch and larger files.

iLovePDF

Uploads to iLovePDF's servers (EU-based). Files are held for two hours by default and deleted after. Free tier limits file size and daily use; Premium unlocks OCR, larger files, and desktop apps.

CloudConvert

Uploads to CloudConvert's servers and runs FFmpeg / LibreOffice / ImageMagick server-side. Free accounts get a small monthly minute quota; paid plans start around $9/month. Files are held for 24 hours.

Zro7

Loads the conversion code (FFmpeg.wasm, pdf-lib, DuckDB-WASM, Tesseract.js, and so on) into your browser and runs everything locally. No account, no upload, no server-side storage. Open DevTools → Network and you will see no request carrying your file's bytes.

Speed: what actually feels fast

Cloud converters look fast because upload progress bars are smooth. Wall-clock time tells a different story. For anything under a few hundred megabytes on a typical home connection, an in-browser tool finishes before a cloud tool has finished the upload — the round trip alone is often 5–15 seconds before conversion begins. Above ~1 GB, both models are bound by CPU rather than network; a modern laptop running ffmpeg.wasm is competitive with a shared cloud worker.

File size limits

  • Smallpdf (Free): 5 GB storage cap; individual files typically limited around 100 MB on free tier.
  • iLovePDF (Free): hard caps per tool (often 100–200 MB) unless you upgrade.
  • CloudConvert (Free): 1 GB per file, but you'll exhaust the monthly minute quota quickly.
  • Zro7: no artificial ceiling — the limit is your browser's memory. Big CSV Viewer streams multi-GB files through DuckDB-WASM without loading them fully into RAM.

Offline behavior

None of Smallpdf, iLovePDF, or CloudConvert work without a connection — they cannot, because the actual conversion runs on their servers. A Zro7 tool page that has loaded once will continue to work with the network off; the WebAssembly modules are cached by the browser.

Pricing

  • Smallpdf: free tier is 2 tools/day. Pro is roughly $9/month billed annually.
  • iLovePDF: free tier has size caps. Premium is roughly $7/month billed annually.
  • CloudConvert: pay-as-you-go minutes; small monthly plans start near $9.
  • Zro7: free, no accounts, no ads inside tools.

Where cloud converters still win

Cloud tools are the right choice when you need server-side chaining (upload once → convert to five formats → download a zip), when you're wiring a converter into a Zapier / Make.com workflow, or when you specifically need CloudConvert's LibreOffice fallback for exotic Office formats. For everything else — merging PDFs, compressing images, trimming video, OCR on a scan, running SQL on a CSV — an in-browser tool is faster, private, and free.

Try it against a real file

The fastest way to see the difference is to run the same task twice. Open Zro7's Compress PDF and a cloud alternative side by side, compress the same 20 MB PDF, and time both. Then check DevTools — one uploaded your file, the other didn't.

Frequently asked questions

Is Zro7 really free forever?

Yes. There's no paid tier, no signup, and no per-tool quota. It works because the compute cost is on your device, not our servers.

Can Zro7 replace Smallpdf for a team?

For any task that runs locally in the browser — merge, split, compress, watermark, convert, OCR — yes. For team collaboration on the same PDF, cloud tools are still ahead.

Does CloudConvert delete my files?

CloudConvert's documented retention is 24 hours. That is a policy, not a technical guarantee — the file physically exists on their infrastructure until then.

Which is best for very large videos?

For files above ~2 GB on a slow connection, cloud converters may finish sooner because upload runs in parallel with conversion. Otherwise a modern laptop running <a href="/compress-video">Zro7 Compress Video</a> is faster and doesn't cost minutes.

Is CloudConvert's LibreOffice fallback available in Zro7?

Not yet — that's the one place a server still wins. For the standard PDF, image, video, and audio pipelines, Zro7 handles it in the browser.

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