VERDICT
Should I use Pandoc?
A universal document converter - pandoc.org
Depends. Buy it if your team is comfortable in a terminal and juggles many document formats. Skip it if you need a GUI, vendor support, or just occasional one-off conversions.
Confidence
High. Based on 20+ public sources: Reddit/HN reviews, official docs, NVD and GitHub security advisories, and competitor comparisons.
Ratings
Pricing
Free
Pandoc
ModelNot disclosed
Monthly feesNot disclosed
HardwareNot disclosed
Free tierYes
Best for
- Docs-heavy teams
- Academic and LaTeX writers
- Developers automating conversions
- Publishing pipelines
Not for
- Non-technical users wanting a GUI
- One-off casual file conversions
- Teams needing vendor support or SLAs
- Untrusted-input pipelines without sandboxing
Gotchas - check before you buy
high
CVE-2025-51591 SSRF actively exploited to steal AWS credentials — patch immediately
high
Arbitrary file write possible with PDF output; sandbox any untrusted input
medium
Generated HTML is not guaranteed safe; use --sandbox by default
medium
No support line — help comes from GitHub, subreddit, and community docs
Pros and cons
Pros
- Converts between 60+ document formats
- Completely free and open source under GPL
- Extensible via Lua filters and templates
- Widely praised as the best markup converter
- 20 years of active development and stability
Cons
- Command-line only; no GUI for non-technical users
- Very powerful but requires significant learning effort
- Edge-case glitches: wide tables, images, math, HTML conversions
- Only the most recent version receives security fixes
- Large install with many dependencies
Sources & method
official x2review x5security x2news x1
- CVE-2025-51591 — SSRF in Pandoc 3.6.4, Actively exploited in attacks targeting AWS instance metadata credentials; patch and restrict untrusted document processing.
- Arbitrary file write via PDF output, GitHub advisory GHSA-xj5q-fv23-575g: malicious input can write files when producing PDFs; --sandbox mitigates.
Key stats
Value for money: 5/5
Rating
Free
Starting price
10
Sources
Analyzed
- Value for money: 5/5. Completely free, GPL, no usage limits
- Ease of use: 2/5. CLI-only; steep learning curve
- Feature depth: 5/5. 60+ formats, Lua filters, templates
- Support quality: 2/5. Community-only; no vendor SLA
- Security posture: 2/5. Actively exploited 2025 SSRF CVE
- Free Price GPL open source
- 60+ Formats supported More than Microsoft MarkItDown
- 20 years Project age Per 'Twenty Years of Pandoc'
- 72 Tracked company users Per TheirStack dataset
Pricing
Pandoc
Free
- All 60+ format conversions
- CLI tool plus Haskell library
- GPL open source, community support
Security
One actively exploited SSRF CVE (2025) and an arbitrary file-write advisory; run --sandbox and stay on the latest version.
- CVE-2025-51591 — SSRF in Pandoc 3.6.4Actively exploited in attacks targeting AWS instance metadata credentials; patch and restrict untrusted document processing.⁸
- Arbitrary file write via PDF outputGitHub advisory GHSA-xj5q-fv23-575g: malicious input can write files when producing PDFs; --sandbox mitigates.⁹
What users say
Reddit and Hacker News users call Pandoc the gold standard for format conversion while noting CLI friction and occasional edge-case glitches.
“Works very well.”
“I really like Pandoc.”
“Pandoc is huge, lots of dependencies”
Alternatives
Compare Pandoc with each alternative.
Microsoft MarkItDown
Simpler, faster markdown conversion — fewer formats than Pandoc
DocRaptor
Paid per-document PDF API with real vendor support
Unmarkdown
GUI publishing tool for users who avoid the terminal
Pandoc vs Unmarkdown
MyST Markdown
Structured markdown toolchain built for scientific publishing
Pandoc vs MyST Markdown
Companies that use it
- RStudio
Companies that could
- Microsoft⁵ Uses Microsoft MarkItDown instead
Full analysis
Based on 20+ public sources: Reddit/HN reviews, official docs, NVD and GitHub security advisories, and competitor comparisons.
Free CLI converting 60+ formats — unbeatable value in a terminal, wrong tool if you want a GUI or support.
Methodology
Based on 20+ public sources: Reddit/HN reviews, official docs, NVD and GitHub security advisories, and competitor comparisons.
Sources
- Pandoc - index (official)pandoc.orgofficial
- Getting started with pandocpandoc.orgofficial
- review
- Pandoc - Hacker Newsnews.ycombinator.comreview
- markitdown vs pandoc discussiongithub.comreview
- Comparing to Pandoc - MyST Markdownmystmd.orgreview
- Pandoc vs Unmarkdownunmarkdown.comreview
- CVE-2025-51591 - NVDnvd.nist.govsecurity
- GHSA-xj5q-fv23-575g advisorygithub.comsecurity
- Hackers Exploit Pandoc CVE-2025-51591thehackernews.comnews
Rate this review
Anonymous. You can change your vote.
Loading votes…
Comments
One queue. No nested comments. Give a display name first. Limit: 200 words per comment and 7 comments per day. You can edit or delete yours.
No comments yet.