Adobe Acrobat vs. Adobe Acrobat Reader vs. Wondershare PDFelement

Wondershare PDFelement

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting 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
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
Wondershare PDFelement	Score 5.0 out of 10	N/A	PDFelement is a document management solution from Wondershare Software headquartered in China.	$79.99 per year per user

Pricing

Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Wondershare PDFelement

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

No answers on this topic

PDFelement: 79.99USD
per year per user
PDFelement: 129.99USD
one-time fee per user

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
Adobe Acrobat	Adobe Acrobat Reader	Wondershare PDFelement
Free Trial
Yes	No	Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No	No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes	No	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

Optional

No setup fee

Additional Details

—

For Individuals: Yearly Plan: $79.99/user; 2-Year Plan: $109.99/user Perpetual Plan(one-time): $129.99/user For Teams: Yearly plan starts at $109/year for 1 user For Education: Yearly Plan: $47.99/user; Perpetual Plan(one-time): $99.99/user

More Pricing Information

Pricing Info

Community Pulse
	Adobe Acrobat	Adobe Acrobat Reader	Wondershare PDFelement
Considered Multiple Products	Adobe Acrobat Verified User Administrator Chose Adobe Acrobat I feel like Adobe Acrobat does it all from converting files to and from PDFs while it preserves the formatting. although Adobe Acrobat Sign and Adobe Acrobat Reader are pretty self explanatory i just feel that Adobe Acrobat has and does it all. This is what i love the most. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Director Chose Adobe Acrobat Adobe Acrobat stacks up way above Apple Preview. There is just no comparison. Adobe Acrobat is just way more robust and even though Adobe Acrobat has way more features I think it is far easier to use than Apple Preview. Apple Preview is seldom used in our company. Adobe Acrobat … Incentivized Helpful? HH Heidy Hernandez Graphic Designer Chose Adobe Acrobat I like It for different reasons , Adobe Acrobat is for digital document signing and Adobe Express is for quick social media layouts and templates. Incentivized Helpful? AM Anuj Chandrakant More Software Developer Chose Adobe Acrobat I selected Adobe Acrobat as i have been using it for quiet a long time and I have spend years using it and with a learning curve or other apps i dont want to learn a new service. Also Adobe Acrobat does all the work I have been doing for years Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Administrator Chose Adobe Acrobat it has many more features. I have always used adobe products Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Director Chose Adobe Acrobat Adobe Acrobat is the only player I know. In my experience, Adobe Acrobat is easily accessible. Incentivized Helpful? LW Lisa Wilder Customer Support Supervisor Chose Adobe Acrobat Ease of use and avaialbility were better for Acrobat Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Manager Chose Adobe Acrobat Not used any other product Incentivized Helpful? Lisa A Lewis Owner Chose Adobe Acrobat Adobe Acrobat is more robust and does much more than Reader. Reader is basic but, I think Adobe Acrobat is a huge step up. Incentivized Helpful? Avery Chipman Interior Designer Chose Adobe Acrobat The most important factor in choosing and using Adobe Acrobat is that it is an Adobe Suite software and nicely integrates with the other Adobe software we use to create print projects, such as InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. It is also convenient that Acrobat has the free … Incentivized Helpful? AC Alexandra Chavez Finance Manager Chose Adobe Acrobat Adobe Acrobat has many more features, which allow you not only to read a PDF but also to edit it. Incentivized Helpful? Jodi Christiansen President Chose Adobe Acrobat Not enough flexibility for editing Incentivized Helpful? GM Gina Monthes Operations Manager Chose Adobe Acrobat Both read documents through Adobe, which is better for security and because the service is more optimized. Incentivized Helpful? TOWANDA STEWART Graduate Assistant Chose Adobe Acrobat This is another great product! Helpful? CH Chris Hein Information Technology Director Chose Adobe Acrobat Acrobat allows files to be edited, and works very well at doing so. Incentivized Helpful? Joyce Williams Graphic Designer Chose Adobe Acrobat The ability with this software especially of multiple PDF files management and creation is more productive and the performance is effective and easy usability is cost effective. Data security and integration functionalities are also a big point with this system and final … Incentivized Helpful? Allen Gendler President Chose Adobe Acrobat There really is no comparison. Although we use other PDF programs, we mainly utilize Adobe. Not only because we find it to be a better program but also because everyone is more familiar with it. However, the other products are implemented for various reasons, such as a feature … Incentivized Helpful? James Bishop Nonprofit Marketing Consultant Chose Adobe Acrobat PDF readers allow you to access PDF files, but that is a bare minimum in my work and not sufficient for my needs when preparing content, adapting it, or even combining content into new PDF files. I've not encountered any application that works as well or intuitively as Adobe … Incentivized Helpful? TW Trevor Wilson IT MANAGER Chose Adobe Acrobat I found Adobe to be richer in features than Foxit or Soda, more intuitive to learn and more reliable when in use. Both alternatives were more prone to crashes or had needed features missing, which is how i made my decision to go with Adobe Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Manager Chose Adobe Acrobat Not as friendly to use. Not many are familiar with this software. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Manager Chose Adobe Acrobat Adobe Reader and Microsoft Edge (default Windows PDF file reader app) offer limited functionality compared to Adobe Standard DC. For colleagues that do not need extended the functionality of Adobe Standard DC Adobe Reader has been installed on their computers. Adobe Reader … Incentivized Helpful?	Adobe Acrobat Reader No answer on this topic	Wondershare PDFelement NL Nathan Lopez Pastor Chose Wondershare PDFelement PDF Element isn't as easy to use as Adobe Acrobat but it sure is a lot cheaper and no monthly subscription. Incentivized Helpful? Amani Ali Admin Associate Chose Wondershare PDFelement Very similiar to Adobe Acrobat. Might actually have more modern features like adding shapes, stamps, and a background color to your PDFs. We ultimately chose this over Adobe because there was a one time fee rather than a monthly subscription. Incentivized Helpful? Allen Schellenberg Executive Director Chose Wondershare PDFelement Price was the only factor that drove me to look at other PDF editing software options. I was very pleased to find PDFelement, as it usually met or exceeded the capability of Adobe Acrobat. Obviously, as a long-time user to Acrobat, there is the tendency to become frustrated … Helpful? Stuart McLellan Business Owner Chose Wondershare PDFelement I have evaluated Acrobat but found it less user friendly than PDFelement and very expensive on a product to product comparison Incentivized Helpful? KY khan yash Accountant Chose Wondershare PDFelement PDFelement is the ideal solution for Adobe Acrobat because of its small size, clean interface, quick start, strong features, light system resource usage, and low pricing. Helpful? Verified User Administrator Chose Wondershare PDFelement PDFelement is more intuitive, and snapper, with more wow factors. Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Wondershare PDFelement Both of the programs mentioned above have worked much better for my needs. Helpful? Anthony Zurica Owner Chose Wondershare PDFelement PDFelement is not only much much easier to use but it is less expensive. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Administrative Assistant Chose Wondershare PDFelement We haven't used any other similar products, and don't feel any desire to stop using PDFelement. Helpful? Eric Y General Manager Chose Wondershare PDFelement The experience is different. From a cost perspective, PDFelement is more cost effective and can get things done. Incentivized Helpful? roland goulet Quality Manager Chose Wondershare PDFelement Adobe PDF is the alternative for me but much more expensive. It has more features but I don’t need them. For a small business PDFelement's affordability makes it a cost effective option. Helpful? Steve Rafalsky Author Chose Wondershare PDFelement I didn't try or buy other programs, but did a good bit of research on them. I went with PDFelement because of the lower pricing, and because of the rich features I learned it had. I also appreciated the great customer service I received from reps in the community forums, which … Incentivized Helpful? DR Dave Robinson Owner Chose Wondershare PDFelement No other products outside Adobe. Incentivized Helpful? Madson Pinto Diretor Chose Wondershare PDFelement PDFelement has among the several options available in the market, a productivity solution with relevant acquisition costs associated with the benefits offered. Among the functions available in the application, other companies have the same function with lower performance and … Helpful? Verified User Manager Chose Wondershare PDFelement Just as good, and just as clean; but easier to use. Just as many options and an easy to use format and layout. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Consultant Chose Wondershare PDFelement Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Analyst Chose Wondershare PDFelement PDFelement was much easier to use compared to Adobe and Foxit, it has much better user interface and feels like native app in Mac Incentivized Helpful? Ricardo Vargas Webmaster Chose Wondershare PDFelement Adobe, it's the top leader in web software solutions. They use SaaS licenses instead of an alternative. This kind of license needs to be paid periodically, and this can be a high-cost solution. PDFelement uses user licenses, that reduces the cost and help to make software less … Incentivized Helpful? Julie Naismith CEO and Founder Chose Wondershare PDFelement Price and ease of use. Incentivized Helpful? Alan Feldman Owner & Photographer Chose Wondershare PDFelement Easy to use and much cheaper than the Adobe products that do the same functions. Incentivized Helpful? Stephen Minder CEO and Managing Director Chose Wondershare PDFelement Value for money judged more beneficial with PDF Element. Incentivized Helpful? JS Jeff Shaffer Director of Technology Chose Wondershare PDFelement It has almost identical functionality for what I have done. Incentivized Helpful? DB Don Brashear Network Administrator Chose Wondershare PDFelement I think it is less complicated to use Incentivized Helpful?

Features

Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Wondershare PDFelement

PDF Editors

Comparison of PDF Editors features of Product A and Product B
	Adobe Acrobat - Ratings	Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.1 2 Ratings 4% above category average	Wondershare PDFelement - Ratings
Edit Text and Images	00 Ratings	9.02 Ratings	00 Ratings
Merge or Split PDFs	00 Ratings	9.52 Ratings	00 Ratings
Add Annotations	00 Ratings	9.02 Ratings	00 Ratings
Text Recognition (OCR)	00 Ratings	8.02 Ratings	00 Ratings
Page Management	00 Ratings	8.52 Ratings	00 Ratings
Form Creation and Editing	00 Ratings	10.01 Ratings	00 Ratings
Secure PDFs	00 Ratings	10.01 Ratings	00 Ratings
Convert to Different Formats	00 Ratings	9.02 Ratings	00 Ratings
Comment and Review Tools	00 Ratings	9.02 Ratings	00 Ratings
Undo and Redo Actions	00 Ratings	8.52 Ratings	00 Ratings

Best Alternatives
	Adobe Acrobat	Adobe Acrobat Reader	Wondershare PDFelement
Small Businesses	Square 9 Softworks Score 9.7 out of 10	Tungsten Power PDF Score 9.7 out of 10	Square 9 Softworks Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	MSB Docs Score 9.4 out of 10	pdfFiller Score 9.0 out of 10	MSB Docs Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises	Tungsten Capture Score 8.0 out of 10	Bluebeam Score 9.2 out of 10	Tungsten Capture Score 8.0 out of 10
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Adobe Acrobat	Adobe Acrobat Reader	Wondershare PDFelement
Likelihood to Recommend	8.8 (812 ratings)	9.5 (75 ratings)	9.1 (55 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	9.1 (45 ratings)	7.2 (2 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Usability	9.2 (254 ratings)	9.5 (3 ratings)	8.6 (5 ratings)
Availability	9.2 (3 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Performance	5.8 (10 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	7.5 (2 ratings)
Support Rating	9.2 (63 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	8.4 (8 ratings)
Online Training	9.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Implementation Rating	9.8 (15 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Configurability	8.0 (4 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model	4.5 (2 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Ease of integration	8.0 (8 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	7.5 (2 ratings)
Product Scalability	7.0 (4 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale	1.0 (2 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale	1.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Adobe Acrobat	Adobe Acrobat Reader	Wondershare PDFelement
Likelihood to Recommend	Adobe When preparing artwork for print production from an application like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, or InDesign, the best way to preview and preflight the work is to export to PDF and use Adobe Acrobat's output preview to check process colors, spot colors, dielines, and any special requirements, like foil stamping or varnish. Adobe Acrobat is also where you make any needed final adjustments to ensure correct reproduction on press. Documents intended for screen viewing must be exported to PDF and edited in Adobe Acrobat so as to add and edit needed accessibility features critical for legislative compliance. Incentivized Alan Gilbertson Creative Director Read full review	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. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Wondershare Technology It's a wonderful asset to have when you lose your original Word doc, etc. so you can still edit a document (and not have to start from ground zero). That feature alone is why I bought this product and why I will continue to recommend. Incentivized Abbie Duquette Project Manager 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! Incentivized PT phillip Tusler Graphic Designer Read full review	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. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Wondershare Technology PDFelement provides the same powerful features as Adobe Acrobat, but the interface is easy to learn and use. The product is extremely intuitive, which saves our clients from becoming frustrated as they learn the product. PDFelement Pro's ability to create fillable forms with the click of one button is one of our clients favorite features. I was impressed at how accurately PDFelement performed this task and the ease with which these fields can be edited, if needed. Security is more important than ever these days and PDFelement provides the encryption and permissions to protect documents quickly and easily. I especially like the batch encrypt feature, this makes it easy to protect multiple files with the same password. PDFelement makes it easy to extract the data from form fields. This is a huge plus for our clients. Incentivized Coleen Carswell Co-Owner 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. Incentivized LK Lucia Kwon Creative Design Manager Read full review	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. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Wondershare Technology I wish there was a lighter program for just reviewing a document and then to transition seamlessly to an editing mode. It takes a few seconds longer to load than Preview on my Mac, and based on that frustration, I use Preview to view documents. A lower price for upgrades. Incentivized Thomas Myers Vice President Of Marketing And Business Development Read full review
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. Incentivized Avery Chipman Interior Designer Read full review	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. Incentivized Dr Gardiner Jones Engineer, IT Operations Read full review	Wondershare Technology Excellent, easy to use product Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Usability	Adobe It’s a very easy app to learn and software is essential. I feel like the app could load a bit faster but overall, is one of my go to apps. Makes reading and editing pdfs easy and I enjoy the usability of the app. It is definitely something I make sure to have downloaded on any computer I’m working from Incentivized HH Heidy Hernandez Graphic Designer Read full review	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. Daniel Berry Copywriter Read full review	Wondershare Technology I am a novice and I am using it like a pro because it is so easy to work with Incentivized Amy Carter Director of Instruction Read full review
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 Incentivized Rod Lott Manager of Marketing Strategy Read full review	Adobe No answers on this topic	Wondershare Technology No issues. Works perfect Incentivized Verified User Anonymous 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. Incentivized Daniel Epstein Senior Clinical Quality Analyst Read full review	Adobe No answers on this topic	Wondershare Technology There is a lot of learning. Although some of the functions you can probably pick up relatively quickly, some of them, including compressing the size or using a different language, remains a myth to me. Incentivized Eric Y General Manager 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. Incentivized BP Bradley Pearce Managing Member Read full review	Adobe No answers on this topic	Wondershare Technology PDFelement is always in contact with me, by email and by giving constant tips and recommendations. But what makes me give you a 10, was the outstanding support service received on July 9th by one of your support professionals Amanda, who helped me with a tariff issue, and makes me [rate] your product. Juan Pablo Montes Strategic Manager Read full review
Online Training	Adobe Answered basic questions. Incentivized Michael Craven President Read full review	Adobe No answers on this topic	Wondershare Technology No answers on this topic
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 Incentivized Rod Lott Manager of Marketing Strategy Read full review	Adobe The application is pretty much "plug and play" Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Wondershare Technology Just pay, download, activate and start using it Incentivized Verified User Anonymous 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. Incentivized JR Joe Reddix President and CEO Read full review	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. JM Jeff Montgomery CTO Read full review	Wondershare Technology I didn't try or buy other programs, but did a good bit of research on them. I went with PDFelement because of the lower pricing, and because of the rich features I learned it had. I also appreciated the great customer service I received from reps in the community forums, which showed me they have an aim in keeping their customers happy - which is always good to have when using fairly complex technical apps. Incentivized Steve Rafalsky Author Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model	Adobe I am not responsible for sales or purchasing Incentivized Sean Moore Marketing Specialist Read full review	Adobe No answers on this topic	Wondershare Technology 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. Incentivized Jamie Caroland Independent Consultant Read full review	Adobe No answers on this topic	Wondershare Technology Super easy Word style layout and format. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
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. Incentivized DB Dennis Blocker Office Manager Read full review	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 Incentivized LH Lourie Holl Digital Marketing Manager Read full review	Wondershare Technology For me, it's been very important to me that my business as a pet sitter and dog walker not leave a negative footprint on the environment. To that end, it's been very important that i'm able to do as much paperwork as possible without using paper. PDFelement is wonderful at helping me meet those goals. Incentivized Lesley Maple Pet Sitter Read full review
ScreenShots	Adobe Acrobat Screenshots		Wondershare PDFelement Screenshots