Do coding agents recommend Apache PDFBox?
Apache PDFBox was chosen in 3% of 801 judged document processing sessions, ranking eighth.
Apache PDFBox was chosen in 3% of 801 judged document processing sessions, ranking eighth. It was also raised as a candidate in 22 further sessions without being chosen.
This page reports what happened when Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok Build CLI and Muse Code had to solve a problem in document processing inside a realistic codebase. Not what a chat assistant says about Apache PDFBox. What an agent actually installed.
One thing to read first: every one of those wins came from a single codebase. That is a result about one repository rather than about document processing in general, and the splits below cannot separate the two. Treat them as a description of that repository.
The numbers
| Category | Document processing |
| Sessions in the category | 801 |
| Sessions where Apache PDFBox was chosen | 23 |
| Install share | 3% |
| Rank in category | 8 of 42 |
| Codebases it won in | 1 |
| Raised as a candidate, not chosen | 22 |
| Chosen when considered | 51% |
| Site | pdfbox.apache.org |
By agent
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok Build CLI and Muse Code agree closely on Apache PDFBox, choosing it at rates within 5 points of each other.
| Agent | Sessions | Chose Apache PDFBox | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | 180 | 6 | 3% |
| Codex | 235 | 2 | 1% |
| Cursor | 180 | 7 | 4% |
| Grok Build CLI | 30 | 0 | 0% |
| Muse Code | 176 | 8 | 5% |
By who was asking
Apache PDFBox performs similarly across the four kinds of buyer, from 0% to 10%. That is unusual: the category leader changed with the persona in 23 of the 31 categories we measured.
| Who is asking | Sessions | Chose Apache PDFBox | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vibe coder | 68 | 0 | 0% |
| Junior developer | 327 | 10 | 3% |
| Senior engineer | 270 | 0 | 0% |
| Enterprise team | 136 | 13 | 10% |
What Apache PDFBox was up against
The full ranking in document processing, from the same sessions:
| # | Product | Runs won | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Azure AI Document Intelligence | 193 | 24% |
| 2 | Anthropic Claude | 150 | 19% |
| 3 | Amazon Textract | 103 | 13% |
| 4 | Google Cloud Document AI | 49 | 6% |
| 5 | OpenAI models | 46 | 6% |
| 6 | Google Gemini | 45 | 6% |
| 7 | Docling | 24 | 3% |
| 8 | Apache PDFBox (this page) | 23 | 3% |
What this means
Agents almost never raise Apache PDFBox without choosing it: 22 sessions raised against 23 chosen. When it gets considered, it usually wins. The constraint is how rarely it gets considered at all, which is a presence problem: templates, framework integrations and pages that answer the configuration and production questions agents actually search for.
Where these numbers come from
The 801 sessions in document processing are part of a published set of 15,051, run with real coding agents inside realistic codebases and judged blind. The full method is on one page: how we measured this.
Every document processing run can be replayed on the board.
If you work on Apache PDFBox: the judge recorded a reason for every session where it was raised and passed over. Those reasons are in the transcripts.
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Common questions
Do coding agents recommend Apache PDFBox?
Yes. Apache PDFBox was chosen in 23 of the 801 judged sessions in document processing, a 3% install share, ranking eighth in its category.
Does Claude Code recommend Apache PDFBox?
In 6 of the 180 sessions in document processing run with Claude Code, which is 3%.
Do different coding agents treat Apache PDFBox differently?
Not much. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok Build CLI and Muse Code chose it at similar rates, between 0% and 5% of their runs.
How was this measured?
Real coding agents at pinned versions were run in sandboxes inside 92 realistic codebases and asked to solve real tasks. A simulated project owner approved or questioned each recommendation before any code was written, and a judge from a model family that builds none of the agents read every session blind.
How often is Apache PDFBox considered but not chosen?
It was raised as a candidate in 22 sessions without being chosen, and chosen in 23. That is a 51% conversion from considered to chosen.
Where this comes from
Armature ran 15,051 judged sessions with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok Build CLI and Muse Code inside 92 realistic codebases, and published every run. The numbers on this page come from that work.