Hey everyone 👋

I recently finished building PDFForgeLib, a project I started to explore the challenges involved in building a web application around PDF processing.

Tech stack: typescript+next.js + Python/FastAPI + supabase+vercel+render

The project focuses on common PDF operations such as:

• Merging and splitting PDFs
• Compressing PDFs
• Converting files
• Working with different PDF utilities
• Handling file uploads and processing
• Responsive UI for desktop and mobile

Project: [https://pdfforgelib.com/](https://)

One of the things I found interesting while building it was that PDF processing becomes quite different once you start thinking about larger files, processing time, browser limitations, error handling, and keeping the user experience simple.

I'm interested in hearing from developers who have worked with file processing, document systems, or similar web applications.

A few things I'd like to discuss:

• What problems would you expect with this type of architecture as usage grows?
• What are the important security considerations when processing user-uploaded PDFs?
• Would you handle PDF processing primarily on the client or server?
• What performance issues should I be looking out for?
• Are there better approaches for handling large files?
• What functionality would you consider essential in a PDF utility?
• Is there anything about the UX or workflow that feels unnecessarily complicated?

I'm still improving the project, so I'm particularly interested in technical criticism, alternative approaches, and things I may have overlooked.

Would be great to hear how other developers would approach the same problem.

Thanks!