Adobe Acrobat Reader vs. iManage Work

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Acrobat Reader is a PDF viewer and converter, available as a free download from Adobe. Users can view, sign, collaborate on and annotate PDF files, or edit and convert PDFs into file formats like Excel and Word.N/A
iManage Work
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
iManage Work is a document management solution formerly known as HP Worksite. iManage was divested from Hewlett-Packard in 2015 and is now an independent company, headquartered in Chicago.N/A
Pricing
Adobe Acrobat ReaderiManage Work
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Acrobat ReaderiManage Work
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe Acrobat ReaderiManage Work
Features
Adobe Acrobat ReaderiManage Work
PDF Editors
Comparison of PDF Editors features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat Reader
9.1
2 Ratings
4% above category average
iManage Work
-
Ratings
Edit Text and Images9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Merge or Split PDFs9.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Add Annotations9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Text Recognition (OCR)8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Page Management8.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Form Creation and Editing10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Secure PDFs10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Convert to Different Formats9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Comment and Review Tools9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Undo and Redo Actions8.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe Acrobat ReaderiManage Work
Small Businesses
Tungsten Power PDF
Tungsten Power PDF
Score 9.7 out of 10
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
pdfFiller
pdfFiller
Score 9.0 out of 10
MSB Docs
MSB Docs
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Bluebeam
Bluebeam
Score 9.2 out of 10
Tungsten Capture
Tungsten Capture
Score 8.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Adobe Acrobat ReaderiManage Work
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(75 ratings)
9.4
(11 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(3 ratings)
8.8
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe Acrobat ReaderiManage Work
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
After creating a document, converting it into Adobe Acrobat Reader is usually very easy for storage in my computer, sending/sharing via emails, etc. This also saves a significant amount of unnecessary printing and paper waste, which is great for reducing waste. I don't have to worry about not having the right software/app to view, edit, and share with anyone.
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iManage
Legal team using this product helps the team to better access documents securely within their email app (Outlook) and the user experience to control the document is excellent and being able to make it private and isolate confidential documents during a court session is very important and iManage has met our requirements. Also, being able to access instantly from users' workstation/laptop devices is very important and iManage plugin for outlook has satisfied our Business requirements.
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Pros
Adobe
  • It has all the tools that individuals need for reading/doing light editing of PDF files.
  • It is the most secure PDF reader on the market, and it tends to get patched with timely updates on a regular basis.
  • It usually works very well, as far as the software itself. It doesn't crash a lot, or is particularly an error prone software platform.
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iManage
  • Very reliable, once setup it is usually pretty flawless outside of Outlook-related issues.
  • Simple and easy to use organization of files and groups.
  • Customizable for different departments or sections to divide up access and partition document system.
  • Allows collaboration with outside parties and makes sharing documents quick and easy.
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Cons
Adobe
  • Being able to add image "stamps" to a document is a little tricky as the stamp has to already be in PDF format (at least on Mac) to work. This mean you have to convert the image to PDF before you can use it as a stamp.
  • Being only able to save one signature and one set of initials is a bit of a pain but you can actually use stamps if you need different versions frequently used scribbles for various reasons. The stamp won't secure the document and prevent future changes the same way the signature would though.
  • All of the other features you might want to use are only included with Acrobat Pro but the options are all displayed in the Reader app. When clicked they will offer the free trial that leads to a paid subscription. This is more of an annoyance but you can't fault Adobe for trying to make a sale.
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iManage
  • Proper implementation of the software is important. We have a client who also has iManage for their large in-house legal department but the implementation seems to have not been as thorough so their experience with the software has not been as positive.
  • Again, proper implementation is key to how powerful the software can be. For a long while our organization did not have the full-text searching implemented, and it was a game changer when we finally did it.
  • I understand that our implementation of iManage does not allow for multiple template matters based on different situations. So we have five default folders, but it would be nice to have a couple of templates, with different numbers and names of the subfolders depending on the situation.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
To be honest, I do not have any say in the renewal of Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. It is managed at an enterprise level, and the decision to renew or not renew is handled well above my pay grade as an external consultant.
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iManage
It has been what our firm has always used, and overall everyone seems to be pleased with it. It is user friendly and intuitive and it doesn't appear we have any intention of changing what we use for our purposes.
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Usability
Adobe
Again, Adobe Creative Suite is widely used and backed by an industry leader, making the experience very familiar and common for anyone who has used a PDF and wants more features to interact with it. It also makes copy text a lot easier than just previewing the file.
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iManage
To me iManage is very intuitive and user friendly. The switch from the application vs the Outlook extension was an adjustment, but it was one I made pretty easily once it happened.
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Support Rating
Adobe
No answers on this topic
iManage
We had an issue a few years ago where a plug-in of some sort which allowed the viewing of PDFs got updated and then whenever some people previewed PDFs in iManage then Outlook would crash. My outlook crashed over 20 times in a single day once. It was a pretty bad time. I know one of our information technology professionals in another office worked non-stop with iManage to get it resolved, and it seemed like they did take the issue pretty seriously.
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Implementation Rating
Adobe
The application is pretty much "plug and play"
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iManage
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Adobe
We have reviewed DocuSign in comparison to [Adobe] Acrobat Reader [DC's] e-sign capabilities. We found that DocuSign has more robust options when creating contracts and consent capabilities. DocuSign's online UI is much more suited to this type of task as well. However, we decided to stick with [Adobe] Acrobat Reader DC because of the price (DocuSign is more expensive) and we felt we didn't need all of the bells and whistles for contract signature and consent.
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iManage
I have viewed several other document management system software, but iManage was already installed at my company before I started working here. For us, I think this is the right solution. Companies with a smaller number of employees or smaller document collections could find some other options that might suite their needs and budget better. We definitely want an on premises solution that provides all the security, tracking, searching, and integration issues iManage offers. Many of the other solutions have adopted cloud technologies only at this point and we are not ready to consider cloud storage due for our sensitive documents at this point.
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Return on Investment
Adobe
  • It's available for free, so there is no excuse to not install
  • Contains features that you would normally have to pay for in competitor software, so it has a positive impact on ROI
  • Reduces the amount of printing
  • Decreases the amount of time spent on regulatory and governance documentation
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iManage
  • The amount of time needed in searching is reduced to few seconds and organizing the documents by case numbers has been the best ROI for our Legal team.
  • The Automation for index searching and AI of relating to the case numbers increases the productivity for the users within our legal team where error is minimum.
  • Less efforts are required to manage Permissions and granting permissions. Applying APIs for granting permissions has been automated.
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ScreenShots