pypdf Migration Check - PyMuPDF AGPL Licence Gate

Find every place your Python project still pulls in PyMuPDF (import fitz, import pymupdf, PyMuPDF==… in requirements, pyproject or environment.yml, LangChain PyMuPDFLoader, LlamaIndex PyMuPDFReader) and get the exact pypdf, pdfplumber or pypdfium2 line that replaces each one.

Web version and docs: https://getreadystack.com/tools/pypdf-migration-check

Why it matters

Artifex publishes PyMuPDF under the GNU AGPLv3 or a commercial licence (https://artifex.com/licensing). Its licensing page says you cannot deploy the open-source edition as part of a server-based application or service without disclosing your own application's full source code under AGPL to any users interacting with it. If you cannot meet that, a commercial licence is required. The page lists no public price; commercial terms go through Artifex sales.

Yardstick: a comparable commercial PDF library, Aspose.PDF for Python via .NET, lists Developer Small Business at US$1199 for 1 developer and 1 deployment location (purchase.aspose.com, read 2026-09-30).

What you get in the open file

Measured on the bundled sample invoice worker (13 lines): 6 findings, one per PyMuPDF line.

The 25 rules

• 5 dependency rules: pymupdf, PyMuPDFb, pymupdf4llm, pymupdfpro, and the PyPI package fitz (an unrelated 0.0.0 project, not PyMuPDF).
• 6 import rules: import fitz, import pymupdf, from fitz import, pymupdf4llm, LangChain PyMuPDFLoader, LlamaIndex PyMuPDFReader.
• 14 call rules: fitz.open, fitz.Matrix/Rect, get_text, get_pixmap, search_for, find_tables, insert_pdf, page_count, get_toc, set_metadata, set_rotation, get_images, insert_text, authenticate. Call rules only fire in files that import fitz or pymupdf, so get_text() in a Tkinter file stays quiet.

Replacement versions were read on PyPI on 2026-09-30: pypdf 6.19.0 (BSD-3-Clause), pypdfium2 5.13.0 (BSD-3-Clause / Apache-2.0), pdfplumber 0.11.10 (MIT).

Use

Open a .py, requirements*.txt, pyproject.toml or environment.yml file. Findings appear in the Problems panel with the replacement line in the message. Run pypdf Migration: Check this file from the command palette at any time. Comment lines are skipped.

Free and team tiers

Free, no key: the full map for the open file, every finding with its replacement - and a Quick Fix (the light bulb) that migrates the open file to pypdf when every PyMuPDF call in it has an exact pypdf equivalent (fitz.open / with fitz.open(...) as doc -> PdfReader, pages, len, load_page, get_text() -> extract_text()).

Licence key, $29 once: Fix all - every migratable file in the workspace in one click, with a preview first, the PyMuPDF dependency swapped to pypdf>=6.19 only when every file that imports PyMuPDF was migrated, and a dated record of each change. A file that uses PyMuPDF features without a one-to-one pypdf call (rendering, search, tables, drawing) is left untouched and listed with what to use instead. Licence key: whole-workspace migration plan (each use mapped to its replacement), a dated AGPL exposure report for the company and a CI gate that fails builds adding new PyMuPDF use.

This extension reads files locally and sends nothing anywhere. It is not legal advice; read your own licence terms with counsel.