10 Best Adobe Acrobat Alternatives for Creating Great PDF Documents in 2025
Looking for a great PDF substitute for Adobe?
While Adobe Acrobat ranks among the best PDF editors, it has severe limitations.
Notably, it tends to slow down and become sluggish when you’re converting and manipulating very large documents, leading to considerable delays.
A study by pdfFiller revealed 14% of its customers migrated from Adobe Acrobat because of various issues. One of those included large file-handling challenges.
If you’ll be working with large PDF documents often for your business, it’s important to get the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives. These allow you to work efficiently with files of all sizes with minimal lag and excellent speed.
The tools I’ve rounded up additionally aren’t as resource-intensive as Adobe, offering extremely good performances even on an older or low-end computer.
If you’re looking to create and manage invoices more efficiently, check out this article I wrote about the best invoice scanning software for small businesses.
In this article, we’ll discuss the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives for creating great PDF documents in 2025 and accelerating document processing for your business.
Quick summary:
1. FileCenter – Best high-performance Adobe Acrobat alternative.
2. SmartVault – Best for securely storing and sharing PDF files.
3. LogicalDOC – Best for splitting and merging PDF documents.
4. Nitro Pro – Best for redacting & securing PDF documents.
5. OpenKM – Best for batch PDF file conversion tasks.
Let’s get started.
1. FileCenter
Need a lightweight PDF editor for your workflow?
FileCenter is one of the best document management software for small businesses because it’s a simple Windows Explorer-like solution. Unlike Adobe Acrobat which is resource-intensive, our software is lightweight & performs well on any device.
It also integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365, enabling you to access powerful PDF and document editing solutions from familiar productivity tools like Office.
With FileCenter, you also get dedicated client file-sharing portals so that you don’t have to send PDF documents and collaborate over vulnerable platforms such as email.
Best features:
- FileCenter lets you annotate PDF files and even create these documents afresh. With this feature, you can add comments to files and configure digital signatures to streamline collaboration and review processes for your small business.
- You also get built-in OCR features, which enable you to edit text in scanned images and customize your file accordingly. This PDF OCR scanning capability also automates data capture to reduce human error and boost efficiency.
- FileCenter lets you split PDF files, a feature that comes in handy when you need to curate specific information or share files easily. It can also perform PDF merging operations in case you need to combine files for long-term archival.
Pricing:
- 15-day free trial.
- Starting plan: $97/user per year.
Verdict
FileCenter overlays Windows Explorer to give you a powerful PDF editor that performs even on older computers. Furthermore, our software offers a secure file sharing service which Adobe Acrobat lacks, making it a tool for creating and sharing PDFs efficiently.
2. SmartVault
SmartVault massively bolsters document security.
With Adobe Acrobat’s alarming history of data attacks, it proves a great substitute because it’s a secure cloud-based document management software, which offers more advanced encryption and other security features for safely storing PDFs online.
What’s more, it integrates with popular e-signature tools like DocuSign to enable you to add electronic signatures to PDFs and create legally-binding documents.
SmartVault also proves to be one of the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives because it can help your small business to improve regulatory compliance, thanks to its set of built-in compliance tools such as PDF document access logging and tracking.
Best features:
- It automatically tracks changes made to uploaded PDFs, maintaining extensive version histories and therefore helping you to improve your audit processes.
- SmartVault enables you to upload and organize PDF documents into a centralized, cloud repository that you can access remotely & conveniently.
- You can use its Connected Desktop app to rotate, delete and add pages to newly scanned PDF documents, and therefore customize files as per your needs.
Pricing:
- 14-day free trial.
- Starting plan: $25/user per month.
Verdict
SmartVault offers advanced encryption and secure PDF sharing channels, enabling you to bolster document security. However, I’ve noticed that it offers basic PDF annotation features so you may need to integrate it with third-party tools for advanced editing.
3. LogicalDOC
Need a PDF editor that can view architectural drawings?
With LogicalDOC, you can open various essential construction documents, such as AutoCAD files and even convert them to standard PDFs to preserve original designs.
It also lets you attach metadata data to PDF files, which makes these documents much easier for your small businesses to sort, organize and retrieve them.
Additionally, LogicalDOC is a top PDF splitting software, which lets you break down large PDFs into smaller and more manageable files. You can also combine multiple PDF files with its merging functions to create more comprehensive reports.
Best features:
- It lets you add annotations and watermarks to PDFs, a feature that you can leverage to deter the unauthorized use or distribution of marketing material.
- LogicalDOC offers a real-time, co-authoring feature, which enables your team to edit and collaborate on PDF and document work in general more efficiently.
- You can preview large documents directly within LogicalDOC, which greatly reduces the time spent looking for information since you don’t need to open files.
Pricing:
- 30-day free trial.
- Contact LogicalDOC for pricing.
Verdict
LogicalDOC is one of the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives I recommend if you’d like to merge and split PDFs more efficiently. However, it sorely lacks important PDF text and image editing features, making it very challenging to work with scanned documents.
4. Nitro Pro
Nitro Pro is a feature rich PDF editing solution.
It supports more than 300 different file types and extensions, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which makes it a versatile PDF conversion tool for your small business.
Beyond that, it lets you create interactive, fillable forms, complete with dropdowns, buttons, and checkboxes, which you can use to gather data.
Need to protect sensitive client information?
NitroPro is one of the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives in this regard because it also doubles up as a great document redaction software solution. You can permanently block out sensitive information within files for confidentiality or compliance purposes.
Best features:
- Nitro PDF offers batch PDF creation features, which enables you to convert multiple files into PDFs at the same time, therefore boosting your productivity.
- It comes with robust PDF collaboration features that include the ability to draw markups and add sticky notes and comments, which enable document reviews.
- Nitro Pro offers advanced PDF image editing that lets you delete, move, resize or even add PDFs to images so you can make documents more visually appealing.
Pricing:
- 14-day free trial.
- Starting plan: $17.39/user per month.
Verdict
Nitro PDF offers robust PDF redaction features that enable you to protect confidential information in your PDF documents. Nonetheless, I’ve noticed that it’s primarily designed for Windows Users, with its Mac version having very few advanced features.
5. OpenKM
Need to convert multiple files into PDFs?
OpenKM is a proven document scanning software, with mass document conversion abilities that enable you to perform multiformat file to PDF conversions, featuring several documents at the same time.
What’s more, it gives you the ability to split and extract selected pages into new PDF files for increased information focus and better file shareability.
It also doubles up as an excellent PDF merging software, making it one of the best Adobe Acrobat tools for seamlessly combining PDF files for your small business. Furthermore, it also lets you send documents by URL to bolster document security.
Best features:
- OpenKM offers robust document preview for PDF, video, audio, image, AutoCAD and MS Office family files, making it an extremely versatile tool for PDF editing.
- It lets you lock or unlock PDF documents, thereby preventing editing and replication conflicts while streamlining collaboration for your small business.
- OpenKM offers robust PDF document version control, and it enables you to track version histories and compare different file iterations for efficient change tracing.
Pricing:
- 7-day free trial.
- Contact OpenKM for pricing.
Verdict
If you need to perform bulk document scanning and PDF conversion, OpenKM can help you improve efficiency for these types of tasks. However, the configuration and installation processes can be time-consuming, more so if you lack a dedicated IT team.
6. Revver
Revvers helps you make engaging documents.
Using its drawing & freehand tools, you can add shapes, lines, and other visual elements to small business documents to create visually rich PDF files. Furthermore, you can add notes, highlights and comments to easily collaborate and gather feedback.
Revver comes with robust PDF page management features, enabling you to delete, reorder, merge and split files according to your present needs.
Just like FileCenter, it’s also one of the best e-signature apps and software thanks to its interactive PDF form filling. This feature enables you to add digital signatures to PDFs without the need for third-party tools to accelerate approval processes.
Best features:
- Revver lets you password protect PDFs and even redact information within these documents to obscure and protect sensitive information for your enterprise.
- It offers OCR-powered, advanced text search which enables you to quickly locate specific information, even with lengthy scanned and image PDF documents.
- It supports a wide range of document formats, enabling you to convert PDFs into various other file types to make them compatible with other productivity tools.
Pricing:
- No free trial.
- Contact Revver for pricing.
Verdict
Revver is a great substitute for Adobe Acrobat, especially if you’re interested in sending and requesting digital signatures efficiently. However, I’ve realized that it has basic PDF tools so you may struggle to perform complex tasks like advanced form creation.
7. pdfFiller
Need a tool that’s just as powerful as Adobe Acrobat?
If so, pdfFiller is one of the best Revver alternatives to consider, because it gives you a robust cloud-based PDF editor. You can use it to edit both text, images and complicated graphics in PDF documents with ease.
It also lets you design custom PDF forms with input elements like checkboxes and text fields, and supports interactive form filling for efficient data collection.
With pdfFiller, you get more advanced collaboration features than Adobe Acrobat. It allows several users to work on a PDF concurrently, with changes updated in real-time, making it a great document management software for improving teamwork.
Best features:
- pdfFiller comes with a rich library of pre-built PDF form templates that you can use to draft documents like invoices, contracts and agreements more efficiently.
- It has an e-signature functionality for creating legally binding signatures, complete with timestamps and IP address tracking to help with compliance.
- pdfFiller comes with robust conversion and compress features, which enables you to work with Word, Excel, PPT, JPG and various other different formats.
Pricing:
- 30-day free trial.
- Starting plan: $8/user per month.
Verdict
pdfFiller has excellent co-editing & file sharing features, which is why I recommend it for improving collaboration on PDF files. Nonetheless, it’s largely a cloud-based platform and it critically lacks offline PDF editing capabilities, making it internet-dependent.
8. DocuWare
DocuWare offers PDF document workflow automation.
It helps you implement business document process automation using its efficient workflow designer to automate approvals, PDF tracking and more to increase efficiency.
DocuWare also integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks and Microsoft Office 365, enabling you to import data from these platforms into PDFs for record keeping.
Have an office scanner that generates unsearchable files?
Well, it’s also a great partner for office document scanners due to its OCR driven document capture and indexing feature. This makes it one of the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives for extracting text in both documents and image-based PDF files.
Best features:
- Multiple users can view, edit and leave annotations and comments on PDF files at the same time, with DocuWare streamlining collaboration for your business.
- DocuWare generates detailed reporting and analytics, giving you insights about the efficiency of your PDF document workflow so you can solve bottlenecks.
- It comes with robust email archiving features, which automatically capture and store emails and attachments as PDFs, helping to bolster email productivity.
Pricing:
- 30-day free trial.
- Contact DocuWare for pricing.
Verdict
DocuWare’s powerful OCR features make it a great substitute for Adobe if you want to search and edit text in scanned documents. That said, I find its pricing structure to be very unfavorable for small businesses, since it attracts high initial and add-on expenses.
9. PandaDoc
PandaDocs outshines Adobe in agreement creation.
This is because it’s a purpose-built proposal software with advanced PDF editing capabilities. You can use it to even create real estate documents such as tenancy agreements and property disclosure forms more efficiently for your business.
If you like to customize PDFs with your brand’s identity, PandaDoc lets you add watermarks, custom colors and logos to documents for professional branding.
Ready to enhance your business’s contract processes?
Just like our software FileCenter, it can also improve contract management due to its PDF digital signatures and customizable templates that speeds up contract drafting.
Best features:
- PandaDoc’s contract management features allow you to autopopulate PDF files with data from your CRM and other sources to minimize costly contract mistakes.
- It delivers powerful PDF tracking analytics, enabling you to track when a PDF file was opened, viewed and completed so you can sort out any bottlenecks.
- PandaDoc’s no-code, drag and drop PDF document builder makes it very easy for your small business to draft visually striking documents from the ground up.
Pricing:
- 14-day free trial.
- Starting plan: $19/user per month.
Verdict
PandaDoc offers vital PDF document generation features like templates & a no-code builder to increase your productivity. However, its advanced features may be an overkill if you have simple PDF editing needs, making the platform complicated to learn & use.
10. Foxit PDF
Foxit PDF is a leading PDF document editor.
It gives you advanced PDF editing features, making it one of the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives that enables the efficient customization of documents with complex layouts.
With Foxit PDF’s smart text reflow feature, you get a fluent editing experience that’s similar to working with MS Word, making it very easy to learn and use.
Want to improve document analytics for your business?
By tapping into the latest document management trends like artificial intelligence, Foxit PDF gives you an intelligent conversational AI that summarizes documents. It can help you to get quick answers from PDF files for more efficient business intelligence.
Best features:
- Foxit PDF’s AI assistant tool can perform complete PDF file rewrites in just a few seconds, thereby enabling you to easily and efficiently repurpose documents.
- It offers a cross-platform solution that you can use on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, among other platforms, making your PDF workflow more flexible.
- Foxit PDF offers advanced PDF editing features, including file conversion, merging, splitting and image editing so you can extensively customize files.
Pricing:
- 14-day free trial.
- Starting plan: $11.22/user per month.
Verdict
Foxit PDF is a top tool to consider if you’d like to edit complex PDF layouts efficiently without losing the original formatting. However, I’ve noticed it’s resource-intensive particularly when you’re working with large PDFs & this can lead to performance dips.
Conclusion
Adobe Acrobat can be overwhelming for newbies.
This is because of its cluttered user interface that makes it hard to navigate.
Aside from its unintuitive layout, it also offers an extensive list of tools and menus, many of which you may not need, further steepening the learning curve.
A survey by Capterra revealed 48% of businesses regret their software purchases. Unfortunately, hard-to-use interfaces are the leading reason for these regrets.
This is why it’s important to consider the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives that have just the features you need and are easy to pick up. If you’d like a high-performance alternative with a simple user interface, I recommend FileCenter.
So give our software a try and start your free FileCenter trial to create beautiful PDF documents easily for your small business. Our software offers a Windows Explorer-like interface that’s easy to learn and top features for editing complex documents efficiently.
