A side-by-side look at the Url To Pdf and PDF Reader MCP MCP servers: transport, auth, tools, quality signals, and the config to install either one in Claude, Cursor, Windsurf or VS Code.
Verdict: choose Url To Pdf for developer tools work; choose PDF Reader MCP for developer tools as a local process. You can also run both side by side in one mcpServers block.
list_capabilities, url_to_pdf, url_to_screenshot.inspect, outline, read.Rows where the two servers differ are marked.
| Spec | U Url To Pdf | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Developer Tools | Developer Tools |
| Quality signal | 52/100 · Good | 69/100 · Great |
| Install command | Not confirmed yet | Confirmed |
| Transport | — | Local subprocess (stdio) |
| Auth | API key required | Not declared |
| Pricing | Not declared | Not declared |
| Required env vars | None listed | None listed |
| Verified owner | Community listing | Community listing |
| GitHub stars | 0 | 1,040 |
| Directory activity | 0 views 0 installs 0 upvotes | 2 views 0 installs 0 upvotes |
| Tools | 5 | 4 |
| Full listing | View Url To Pdf | View PDF Reader MCP |
list_capabilitiesFree. Returns what this server can do, the price of each paid tool, and where to buy an API key.url_to_pdfRender a web page to PDF. Requires an API key purchased at https://url-pdf.hammbox.com/buy. If this MCP request carries a valid "x-api-key" or "Authorization: Bearer" header, it renders directly and returns a 1-hour download URL; otherwise it returns purchase guidance.url_to_screenshotCapture a page as an image. Requires an API key purchased at https://url-pdf.hammbox.com/buy. If this MCP request carries a valid "x-api-key" or "Authorization: Bearer" header, it renders directly and returns a 1-hour download URL; otherwise it returns purchase guidance.url_to_markdownExtract page content as clean Markdown. Requires an API key purchased at https://url-pdf.hammbox.com/buy. If this MCP request carries a valid "x-api-key" or "Authorization: Bearer" header, it renders directly and returns a 1-hour download URL; otherwise it returns purchase guidance.url_to_extractExtract structured data from a page as JSON: title, meta description, canonical URL, language, main text and links. Readability-first, no LLM involved. Requires an API key purchased at https://url-pdf.hammbox.com/buy. Same auth as the other paid tools.inspectDocument and media evidence when Markdown is not enough. video_timeline (bounded scene/cue timeline) and render_frame (actual decoded frames), and cite_check (quote/location support, not semantic truth), are anymd Pro; PDF operations: inspect (page facts, metadata), render_page (PNG images), extract_regions (crop bounding boxes), ocr_pages / analyze_regions (configured OCR or vision provider), structure (JSON with document map, elements, geometry; profile quality|research adds trust and accessibility reports), compare (page-level diff of sources[0] vs sources[1]).outlineReturn a document heading tree with stable node ids, title paths, page/slide/chapter ranges and Markdown byte ranges. PDF bookmarks or detected headings, Word headings, PowerPoint slides, EPUB chapters and headings, HTML and Markdown. format json (default) or tree. Pass a node id to read to fetch that section.readRead any document as clean Markdown: PDF, Word (DOCX), PowerPoint (PPTX), Excel (XLSX/XLS/ODS), CSV, EPUB, HTML or a web URL, Markdown/text, images (metadata + OCR), audio/video (metadata, chapters, subtitles). Pages/slides/sheets carry <!-- page N --> style markers for citation. Long documents stop at max_tokens (default 20000) and end with a cursor to continue; choose pages with pages: "1-5,8". A directory returns its readable files.searchSearch documents for text: one file, many files, whole directories (recursive, .gitignore aware), or URLs, across every format read supports. Returns each hit as file + page/slide/sheet + a snippet with the match in bold. mode auto (default) finds the exact phrase and falls back to BM25-ranked passages when there is none; literal or ranked force one. Narrow directories with glob, e.g. "*.pdf".Paste either block (or both) into your client config, e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json. We only show a config when the install command is confirmed.
No confirmed install command for Url To Pdf yet — follow the setup steps linked from its listing page rather than a guessed package name.
{
"mcpServers": {
"pdf-reader-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@sylphx/anymd"
]
}
}
}