Adobe Acrobat vs. Tungsten Power PDF

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Acrobat
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Acrobat DC is the current version of the well-established document / PDF management solution, part of the Adobe Document Cloud (the other part being Adobe's eSign services based on technology acquired with EchoSign in 2011).
$29.99
per month per seat
Tungsten Power PDF
Score 9.6 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Tungsten Power PDF (formerly Kofax) is a solution to manage PDFs for businesses and individuals available with a one-time purchase with no subscription fees. It has a built-in eSignature integration with SignDoc and DocuSign for a complete end-to-end document…
$129
one-time fee per license
Pricing
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Editions & Modules
Acrobat Pro for Individuals
$19.99
per month
Acrobat Pro for Teams
$23.99
per month per user
Acrobat Studio for Individuals
$24.99
per month
Power PDF Standard
$129
one-time fee per license
Power PDF for Mac
$129
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Advanced
$179
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Business
Get a Quote
per year per seat
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDesktop licenses are buy once, own forever. No subscription fees. Business server licenses are term-based or perpetual with optional maintenance & support contract. Volume and upgrade discounts available.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Considered Both Products
Adobe Acrobat
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat excel at its e-signature capabilities. This beats both Foxit and Power PDF. However, it lacks native integration with accounting-specific tools like TaxFolder. TaxFolder allow one-click from tax software itself to send out signature request. Way more …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe is well placed against Kofax. Its e-signing is hand-down easier and more robust. That alone gives it the edge. Kofax does some some easier tools to use and we have it as a backup. But Adobe is our go-to solution for PDF creation, processing and document administration. …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Kofax does just about everything Adobe does, but Adobe is more widely used so using Adobe helps with staying compatable with our customers. adobe also does the software functionality features a little better in our opinion.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
I just don't feel as comfortable using other PDF editors. They just don't have the same name and look as Adobe Acrobat and I worry about the security of using other software to work on our company's documents. They may have similar features as Adobe Acrobat but I don't see any …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
I prefer the Kofax suite of products with intuitive interfaces, 80-90% of the functionality of Adobe Acrobat, a one-time purchase fee, discounted upgrades and system integration, and no reports of collaborators to open, use, edit or navigate PDFs. Kofax has been my choice for …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Acrobat is our choice over Kofax Power PDF. It's just a better solution in our opinion. We use their Paperport application but pairing it up with Acrobat keeps out environment consistent and I think gives us better results.

Not saying the Kofax PDF is a bad product, but I …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
For sure Adobe is one of the top products you can use but it is very pricey compared to other vendors. If it is not required by the company and you need basic functions such as comments or converting, then you can probably choose other vendors.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Power PDF is very complicated and not intuitive.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
This software has fewer features and is harder to use. The editing, redacting, combining, and organizing tools are much less powerful. It causes much more work and less efficiency when I have to use something other than Adobe to work with PDFs. This software also does not do …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Based on my experience, I like Kofax Power PDF better. I find it easier to use. I think that it does a much better job at converting documents into fillable PDFs. The price point is much more reasonable.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Acrobat and Kofax Power PDF are largely very similar, though I do have a preference for Kofax when creating forms. Kofax is also much cheaper than Acrobat. From a cost perspective, I certainly recommend Kofax over Acrobat. However, I prefer the user interface of Acrobat as I …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
I like Acrobat because it feels like the company pays attention to it and improves it regularly without affecting core functionality. Kofax Power PDF was more difficult to use, and it felt neglected, only getting an update maybe once every year or so.
Tungsten Power PDF
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Adobe Acrobat has become a bit like a chameleon, as it is a multi-generation product that lost its identity. Power PDF needs to pay attention to this point, as the product is evolving and could be a too rich-featured product, therefore a bit too complex to use for a regular user.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Tungsten Power PDF is easier to use and more user friendly than Adobe Acrobat. Most versions of Adobe Acrobat either do not have all of the features that Tungsten Power PDF has, or charge a fee/premium for licensing. Tungsten Power PDF integrates all of these features into …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
For my purposes, it is a lot better than Adobe Acrobat across the board. Signing PDFs in Tungsten Power PDF are easier than in Adobe and the conversion is a lot better than in Adobe. I bought a copy of Tungsten Power PDF for my own personal use instead of the Adobe Suite that …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
I don't have a ton of experience with Adobe PDF editors. I became a user of Tungsten based on a recommendation from a co-worker and have not had a want to change to anything else.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
I initially selected Tungsten Power PDF because it was more affordable; however, I soon discovered the features and stability of the Tungsten product was comparable to working directly within the Adobe environment. I feel very confident now, that I would select Tungsten Power …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
I selected Power PDF for functions, ease of operation and their value proposition
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
I asked a CFO group for recommendations, and selected Tungsten from their recommendations. It worked well and was within our cost range, so I didn't evaluate anything further. CFOLC was the group.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
These two programs are very similar in many ways - editing a document, splitting a document, converting a document to another format and creating a form. Where this product stands out is in the compare feature. It's night and day. This feature is saves resources, time and …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Small sample size here, but this was the free download but users were not able to use the full features. Our manager had used Nuance before and recommended it over the paid DC version.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
PDF exchange is much better because it includes more professional features needed for engineers And professionals. It also has a lot of features that makes the interface much more easy to use such as the ability to copy the file directly into your clipboard from the PDF …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
My CFO mandated Tungsten due to cost. I prefer Adobe, but no longer have access to it.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Much easier to use. TBH I bought Nuance based on reviews and price point. A risk that proved worth taking.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Just as good if not better than the Adobe product line with less cost. We needed a PDF writer and editor. Tungsten Power PDF allowed us the same functionality at a fraction of the cost. We thought it was worth trying and it was definitely a great choice for our business …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Adobe is overly expensive.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Similar functionality, easier to use, less expensive.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Low cost with similar function
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Ease of use, dependability, local access without the need for an online connection or subscription, and general familiarity of the software after years of use. Nitro is difficult to use, never works right, and jumbles files where it is hard to find what you are working on. …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
ease of use, cost savings, intuitive interface
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
In my opinion, humble as it may be, Kofax has lots of power, an easier learning curve, and obviously a better price for the standalone Adobe or the monthly Adobe. SodaPDF (at the time cheaper than Nuance/Kofax) did not perform to expectations and left me wishing for Nuance PDF …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
We have had instances where we've used the other two products. Adobe did not offer a one time payment at the time so we did not go with that one. Most users currently use Foxit. I would not say that Foxit nor Kofax really beat each other out, some prefer one or the other based …
Features
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
PDF Editors
Comparison of PDF Editors features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Tungsten Power PDF
8.8
28 Ratings
1% above category average
Edit Text and Images00 Ratings6.726 Ratings
Merge or Split PDFs00 Ratings9.628 Ratings
Add Annotations00 Ratings9.326 Ratings
Text Recognition (OCR)00 Ratings7.422 Ratings
Page Management00 Ratings7.626 Ratings
Form Creation and Editing00 Ratings9.520 Ratings
Secure PDFs00 Ratings9.520 Ratings
Convert to Different Formats00 Ratings9.323 Ratings
Comment and Review Tools00 Ratings9.523 Ratings
Undo and Redo Actions00 Ratings9.523 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Small Businesses
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
pdfFiller
pdfFiller
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
MSB Docs
MSB Docs
Score 9.4 out of 10
pdfFiller
pdfFiller
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Tungsten Capture
Tungsten Capture
Score 7.9 out of 10
Bluebeam
Bluebeam
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(838 ratings)
9.5
(599 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(39 ratings)
9.9
(112 ratings)
Usability
9.3
(243 ratings)
9.7
(46 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(3 ratings)
9.1
(13 ratings)
Performance
6.3
(10 ratings)
9.1
(13 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(62 ratings)
9.9
(435 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
3.6
(1 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.7
(15 ratings)
9.1
(33 ratings)
Configurability
7.3
(3 ratings)
9.1
(9 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
6.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(9 ratings)
9.1
(10 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.1
(4 ratings)
9.1
(12 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
4.0
(3 ratings)
9.1
(7 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
5.5
(2 ratings)
9.1
(7 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
I would recommend to my peers if they are signing paperwork as it makes it super easy. I would also recomned it if somebody was trying to make an editable PDF or fill in paper document to be able to share across multiple platforms and emails at a timely manner
Read full review
Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
GREAT for combining documents into a single PDF. Great for working with a PDF. Not so great converting PDF to Word format. Would like to see more effort put into that development. Would like to see more effective testing of updates prior to pushing them out as well. Otherwise it is awesome.
Read full review
Pros
Adobe
  • Ability to manipulate a PDF in various ways.
  • Print production is incredibly helpful for checking off and making sure PDFs are ready for print.
  • Commenting in Adobe Acrobat is awesome! So nice to be able to hand off a PDF and get it back with edits that are easy to navigate and resolve!
Read full review
Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
  • Typewriter functionality is great, although can take some time to load. This allows you to fill in text wherever applicable without turning the rest of the pdf into editable text.
  • Fast load times
  • Has autogenerated text feature so anything in the pdf can become editable
Read full review
Cons
Adobe
  • More printing settings, like being able to adjust the margins and place the print area on the page when the file size is larger than the page, and I only want to print one section. Illustrator has this feature. Often, we print from Illustrator instead, because of this limitation.
Read full review
Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
  • I find that quickly editing text within a document or adding a line of text is clunky and can snowball into things popping out of place. I prefer to export text, and then work on it elsewhere.
  • Sometimes it seems that text recognition is trying too hard and throws me paper punches as "O"s and wrinkles as shapes, so I have to get rid of those artifacts.
  • The "Update Available" popup which is usually not an actual update announcement but rather an offer to sell me something is annoying.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
Adobe Acrobat works seamlessly with the other Adobe products we use that are industry-standard. We will certainly continue to use Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator, meaning it will always be convenient to work seamlessly with Adobe Acrobat for our organization. We are happy with the performance of Acrobat and it's meets our expectations.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
Tungsten Power PDF is easy to use, the staff all like it, and there are no issues with it on any level. It is a more cost-effective solution to our PDF needs than other products currently available on the market. This product works as intended and it fits our business needs perfectly.
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Usability
Adobe
I've only used it on Mac desktops, so I am giving this a neutral rating right down the middle. I've not used a mobile version of Adobe Acrobat for cell phone or for a tablet (like an Apple iPad). I've also not used Adobe Acrobat on a PC, although Acrobat Reader, yes. (But that's not the point of this review.)
Read full review
Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
It is fast and easy to get the hang of. It really didn't take a lot of effort to learn how to use this program and I appreciated that it was pretty "plug and play" and there wasn't a long learning curve.
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Reliability and Availability
Adobe
We have not had availability issues with Adobe Acrobat, or at least none that I am personally aware of. Some may encounter crashes of the software during outages of electricity in their city or neighborhood, which no one can plan for, but with generators in our organization, we have been lucky not to have outages
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
Other that a PDF partially disappearing if left up for a long period of time - no issues. (If you close it and reopen it, it is all there. We have some PDFs that are 400-600 pages long.)
Read full review
Performance
Adobe
One of the best features of Adobe Acrobat is its speed and stability. When dealing with massive multi-page files, having to reload a crashed program over and over again would slow down progress unnecessarily. And expanding on that, having the table of contents generated allows me to skip to different pages with ease, a necessary feature with exceptionally long files. word searches are even more helpful with text recognition.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
Pages nearly always load at the expected rapid speed. Some documents that print quickly from Adobe Reader print much more slowly from Power PDF. I have never generated a report - that's a feature I didn't know existed until now and do not know what it's for
Read full review
Support Rating
Adobe
For a while, Acrobat DC crashed pretty frequently. I contacted Adobe Acrobat support about the problem. At first support was unable to provide a solution. After about a month Adobe's software engineers provided a fix. I just wish it had taken less than a month to solve the problem.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
I have used it for 15 years and have only needed support once: a simple update that allowed me to use the software as intended. The support team was attentive and responsive, and I was on my way very quickly.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
I got an overview of the product from my predecessor who was about to retire from the job I now hold. He did not go into very many of the features and probably only knew about the ones he used most frequently.
Read full review
Online Training
Adobe
Easy to follow and understand
Read full review
Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
We watched the training videos and tested out the features and functionality side by side. Some features are not used on a regular basis is it is convenient to go back and review training on that particular functionality when needed.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Adobe
I was not involved with the implementation process, so I cannot answer this question. However, when it was installed on my computer system, they did so virtually. I just sat there while they took control of my computer over the network and watch them install it, lickety split
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
Easy and quick, with no problems or support needed. Worked as intended right out of the box. E-signing was the only area that implementation was dificult and required support
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Adobe
In my opinion, both complement each other. Microsoft clearly has with Copilot the AI Edge. However, the visual dynamics of Adobe Creative are Outstanding and provide a balanced approach to creativity, utilizing both Excellent, user-friendly Tools.
Read full review
Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
There is nothing to compare it to. Tungsten Power PDF is by far an easier and more efficient option. The one advantage of CutePDF is the functionality of overlay and underlay with headers and footers. The other functions in Tungsten Power PDF are much easier to use. Pricing is also an attractive option.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Adobe
The only thing I can think of that may be helpful would be a more flexible tiered pricing options based on usage or document volume.
Read full review
Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Adobe
I find that many users aren't aware of many features of the software they use, nor may they be comfortable with learning multiple-step processes. For the simplest of PDF purposes (scanning, downloading, exporting), it gets a thumbs-up. For anything involving electronic signatures, meh--causes eyes to glaze over, or forgetting what all is involved.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
Not really familiar since I'm the only person who uses it. But in the past it has been my understanding that Power PDF was offered only on a single-license basis, so it's been expensive for me to use it at home and at work because I had to pay for it on my own. In my current position management supports it so I at least only have to pay for it once.
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Return on Investment
Adobe
  • Adobe Acrobat has saved us time in managing documents. In this day, everything is fast, moves fast, and keeping up with that pace demands software that functions at the same level. Adobe Acrobat does that. It has streamlined the steps I need to take to edit and create documents we need to manage our customers.
  • Adobe Acrobat removes the worry and stress associated with managing a large influx of documents. Something as simple as a document featuring an image that was sent to us upside down. Using the old method, I would have to open other software, click 'Edit', find the 'Rotate Image' button, click it a couple of times, save it as a JPEG, then attach it to Word, and finally save it as a PDF. It was a grueling process that consumed a great deal of time. Now, I simply open the image, and Adobe automatically recognizes it is upside down and fixes it for me. I can save and move on; it literally takes me seconds. Amazing.
  • Adobe Acrobat is intuitive and easy to use, and the additional apps are relevant to the needs that come up. If I have an idea, I can go to the available apps and find exactly what I need. Impressive and speaks to the years of experience this company has had to fine-tune its product and make it obvious that it is aggressive in staying on top.
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Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax)
  • Although it was expensive to get the program (just under $200), I found that it was nice that there was only that one time charge. If there were updating or annual fees, I think that would be a deal breaker. Thankfully there isn't, though!
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ScreenShots

Adobe Acrobat Screenshots

Screenshot of where to create, edit, convert, and share PDF files all from within Microsoft Teams – as part of Acrobat integrations with Microsoft 365 apps.Screenshot of Liquid Mode in Adobe Acrobat Reader mobile app, where users can read PDFs on phones and tablets without having to pinch and zoom. Navigate lengthy documents with intelligent outline and search tools, while maximizing readability and comfort with font size and line spacing that are adjustable.Screenshot of where to fill and sign PDF forms from anywhere and on any device. Here, users can collect signatures, digitally track progress, and automatically archive the signed document.Screenshot of the Adobe Scan mobile app, used to capture and convert documents into high-quality, interactive PDF documents that can be filled out, signed, and shared. This eliminates the hassle of finding a printer, filling a form by hand, and scanning it again.

Tungsten Power PDF Screenshots

Screenshot of the PDF Create Assistant, which can be used to create multiple PDFs at the same time from a variety of source formats. Create individual PDFs, or combine into one PDF package.Screenshot of PDF Profiles that can be created to apply commonly desired settings to new PDF documents created in Power PDF.Screenshot of the application's color, changed from purple to blue, light gray or dark gray.Screenshot of some lightweight document automation that can also be achieved with the Watched Folder and Sequence features.Screenshot of where packages can be signed with pre built templates using Kofax Sign Doc or other integrating e-signersScreenshot of PDFs that can be navigated with a thumbnail view