Faster by design
gopdfrab validates PDF/A-1b at 2,939 files per second in batch mode, against 155 for Apache PDFBox Preflight and 130 for veraPDF — roughly 19× to 23× faster. On cold single-file runs the difference is larger still, because both alternatives pay JVM startup on every invocation: 9.5 ms versus 295 ms and 991 ms. It also uses under a tenth of the memory and ships as a single static binary that needs no JRE.
Results
| Metric | gopdfrab | PDFBox Preflight | veraPDF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Batch throughput files / sec · higher is better | 2,939 | 155 | 130 |
| Cold single-file latency ms · lower is better | 9.5 | 295 | 991 |
| Peak memory MB · lower is better | 80 | 945 | 728 |
| Deployment footprint MB · lower is better | 12.3 | 11.7 | 15.3 |
Batch throughput
files / sec · higher is betterWhole 773-file corpus in one process. gopdfrab finishes in 0.27 s.
Cold single-file latency
ms · lower is betterOne process per file, median corpus file, including process/VM startup.
Peak memory
MB · lower is betterMax RSS over the batch run.
Deployment footprint
MB · lower is betterStripped static binary vs. CLI jars. The binary sizes are close — the difference is that the jars additionally need a JRE, another 40 to 200 MB, and the gopdfrab binary contains fonts and colorspaces for the PDF/A conversion functionality.
Methodology
One run of the benchmark harness in the gopdfrab repo (commit 1834292, 2026-08-04) over the combined Isartor + veraPDF PDF/A-1b corpora (773 files), on one Intel Core Ultra 7 255H running linux/amd64, against veraPDF 1.30.2 and PDFBox Preflight 3.0.7. Cold runs one process per file and includes VM startup, batch runs one process for the whole corpus and isolates the engine. Startup alone is 7.9 ms for gopdfrab against 102 ms for Preflight and 648 ms for veraPDF. Absolute numbers depend on hardware and other factors.
- Measured
- 2026-08-04
- Hardware
- Intel Core Ultra 7 255H, linux/amd64
- gopdfrab
- commit 1834292, go1.26.5
- veraPDF
- 1.30.2
- PDFBox Preflight
- 3.0.7
- Corpus
- 773 files (Isartor + veraPDF PDF/A-1b)
What this comparison does not say
veraPDF and PDFBox Preflight are mature, widely trusted projects with broader scope than gopdfrab has today. veraPDF covers PDF/A-1, -2, -3 and -4 as well as PDF/UA; gopdfrab currently implements PDF/A-1b only, with the other parts on the roadmap. If you need PDF/A-2 or PDF/A-3 validation right now, veraPDF is the correct tool and this benchmark is not an argument against it.
gopdfrab passes 569 of 569 files in veraPDF's own corpus and 204 of 204 in the Isartor Test Suite, and documents it converts pass independent veraPDF validation. The benchmark is not about correctness or coverage, it is about cost per validation within PDF/A-1b.