Adobe Acrobat vs. Adobe InDesign

Adobe Acrobat

2952 Reviews and Ratings

Adobe InDesign

702 Reviews and Ratings

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).	$12.99 per month
Adobe InDesign	Score 9.2 out of 10	N/A	Adobe InDesign supports creating digital and print documents such as flyers, stationary, posters, and other types of media, with rich graphics, images, and more. Adobe InDesign is available standalone or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite collection of media management and creation products.	$31.49 per month

Pricing

Adobe Acrobat

Adobe InDesign

Editions & Modules

Acrobat Standard for Individuals: $12.99
per month
Acrobat Standard for teams: $14.99
per month per user
Acrobat Pro for Individuals: $19.99
per month
Acrobat Pro for Teams: $22.19
per month per user
Acrobat for Enterprise: Contact sales team

Monthly Plan: $31.49
per month
Annual Plan, Prepaid: $239.88 ($19.99)
per year (per month)
Annual Plan, Paid Monthly: $251.88 ($20.99)
per year (per month)

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
Adobe Acrobat	Adobe InDesign
Free Trial
Yes	No
Free/Freemium Version
No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

Optional

No setup fee

Additional Details

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More Pricing Information

Community Pulse
	Adobe Acrobat	Adobe InDesign
Considered Both Products	Adobe Acrobat NI Natasha Ing Student Chose Adobe Acrobat I would say that Adobe Acrobat DC is the easiest to use among Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Illustrator because it does not require any complex training or experience with the software beforehand. Similar to Microsoft Word, it is an easy-to-understand interface … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe Acrobat We use all Adobe products. Adobe is the industry standard. I appreciate that they are constantly improving their products. 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? DM Denny Marlin Executive Director Chose Adobe Acrobat Acrobat is the standard. Why consider any other? Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Professional Chose Adobe Acrobat There's not really anything I've used before that's similar to Acrobat. Incentivized Helpful? ND Nicole DUrbano Graphic Design Chose Adobe Acrobat I would say Acrobat is more user-friendly, especially for those who aren't super tech savvy or doesn't have access to Adobe programs. Incentivized Helpful? LF Laci Fitch Marketing Coordinator Chose Adobe Acrobat I prefer Adobe Acrobat to Bluebeam because it has the functionality that I need and because I use so many other Adobe products, it's an easy transition for me. Bluebeam is much more cumbersome and really just has more construction-focused functionality that I don't need on a … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe Acrobat Great user friendliness. Big player in the market. And benchmark in these systems and tools. Incentivized Helpful? Michael Berchak Designer / Creative Chose Adobe Acrobat For now, I use Adobe CC so it's part of that package for me. I have not really had any reason to look at other platforms all that much. I know that Microsoft Office has its own version of a PDF publisher that seems to work very similarly to Adobe. Other than these I am not … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Manager Chose Adobe Acrobat SignNow works well too, but Adobe Acrobat fits better since we use so many other Adobe products to conduct our business. It's easier to stay within one system rather than jumping between platforms. It's also nice to avoid paying two subscription fees and instead staying with … Incentivized Helpful? Jim Nelson CTO (Chief Technical Officer) Chose Adobe Acrobat Honestly, Adobe is the only company I think of when it comes to anything having to do with the Portable Document Format. I have tried a couple other more "simple" apps over the years for specific functions, but they paled in comparison. So much so that I do not recall the names … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe Acrobat Illustrator and InDesign are necessary for creating the content we turn into PDFs, but Acrobat is useful for combining pages from multiple teams, sometimes from documents created from disparate programs. It's also a more widely used program, so we can trust that our internal … Incentivized Helpful? Lisa Fargo Owner Chose Adobe Acrobat It doesn't stack up AGAINST...it compliments. It's a worthy peer and integral extension of all the other software we use. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Professional Chose Adobe Acrobat I have used other PDF editors through the years to test them against Acrobat, but Acrobat always wins due to the amount of usable features that it offers, as well as ease of use. Aside from Reader, I don't remember the names of the other software unfortunately. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe Acrobat All of Adobes products work cohesively together making projects seamless. Adobe Acrobat DC is my go-to software to share files and documents with others that I know don't have access to more involved Adobe platforms such as InDesign or Illustrator. I know that users will be … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe Acrobat I find it easier to edit and read pdfs in Adobe Acrobat. Incentivized Helpful? Winona Harrod Graphic Designer Chose Adobe Acrobat Adobe Acrobat DC is the best and is great for PDF editing, making editable fields, and print production checking. However, the commenting features do not stack up to services like Ziflow which make the commenting more user-friendly and easy to use. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Administrative Assistant Chose Adobe Acrobat All are robust software packages. I can say that I am nowhere near scratching the surface of what these products will do. Their functionality is somewhat intuitive and you can seamlessly switch from one package to another when creating and editing documents. This holds true for … Incentivized Helpful? Che Odom Marketing and Business Administrator Chose Adobe Acrobat Adobe Acrobat DC is easier to use and more intuitive than BlueBeam, we prefer Bluebeam for operations teams because it offers to scale and measuring for construction documents that our operations teams need, however, would prefer the Adobe suite for ease of use, and familiarity … Incentivized Helpful? Erin Drake Director of Marketing Chose Adobe Acrobat I don't use Bluebeam, but many of my coworkers do - particularly when it comes to construction plans and surveys. They tend not to use Adobe Acrobat DC as much, sticking to Bluebeam for everything, but because they have the software they do not have difficulty using Adobe … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Professional Chose Adobe Acrobat I have used free pdf document handling programs over the years, however, none have been as robust as Adobe Acrobat. Incentivized Helpful? Marcos Sola Design Engineer Chose Adobe Acrobat Adobe Acrobat works hand-in-hand with Adobe Illustrator, PhotoShop, and InDesign. Anything that is designed within those platforms can easily be exported as a PDF in order to be viewed in Acrobat DC. Where Adobe Acrobat excels is that we can send our final PDFs to our customers … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Professional Chose Adobe Acrobat Adobe Acrobat DC is the end product software used to complete print projects. Most vendors require a pdf only so it’s a necessary tool to learn. Incentivized Helpful?	Adobe InDesign Courtney Birnbaum Senior Publications Specialist Chose Adobe InDesign Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress and Affinity Publisher work similarly in the big picture. The newest on the market, Affinity Publisher takes many cues from its predecessors but still remains a less sleek product. Still, I use Publisher on my own and find it to have great … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Director Chose Adobe InDesign Adobe InDesign is a much different platform for document creation and publishing compared to Adobe PhotoShop. With Photoshop your goal is to start with or create an image and make all modifications and adjustments within that program. InDesign takes those finished images and … Incentivized Helpful? JL Jessica Laracy art director Chose Adobe InDesign I've only ever used Quark but not for years. But InDesign is a much better product. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe InDesign While Quark stalled out, InDesign continued to improve its product features year after year. Also, the integration with other industry standard software (Photoshop and Illustrator) is a no-brainer. Incentivized Helpful? Trish Lofton Administrative Assistant Chose Adobe InDesign Until the development of InDesign, I was a faithful user of QuarkXPress. I knew Quark like the back of my hand. Once I decided to make the change, I realized how robust InDesign was compared to "old faithful." It took a little time to learn the nuances. Now, I can't imagine … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Program Manager Chose Adobe InDesign I have used proprietary composition web applications at other publishers, and I have used Quark (which is less powerful/feature-rich) and LaTeX (which is great for what it does but is not right for all projects). I prefer InDesign for its universality. It can be used on just … Incentivized Helpful? Kelsie Hamilton Program Officer Chose Adobe InDesign So basically, we just use Word Docs, generated PDFs from them, and combined them all into the reader. We decided to move to InDesign, because we were working with a graphic designer and it made a lot more sense to have an entire rebrand that read and felt differently. InDesign … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe InDesign We can use AI to make catalog or sellsheets too, but it can not compete with [Adobe] InDesign, AI is useful for single page stuff, but it's a bit heavy while carries more pages and more links. While we are doing some artworks, we prefer to use AI, but once it has few more … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Team Lead Chose Adobe InDesign Microsoft products do not match the aesthetic tools that [Adobe] InDesign offers, cannot support the customizable options available for export, and do not produce documents with as high a degree of accessibility. That said, they do have their place in collaboration in a team- … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe InDesign There aren't even any worthy of mentioning. There is an open-source Scribus, or Microsoft solutions like Word and Publisher. But those shouldn't be used in the same breadth as InDesign. Are you sending a document to a professional press? You use InDesign. I really do wish … Incentivized Helpful? MR Matt Russell Warehouse Manager Chose Adobe InDesign All Adobe products are great for their specific use cases. InDesign is great for us at Legal Books Distributing because we create annual editions of books and InDesign is an AMAZING book creating tool. Once you get the hang of using these tools, your life can become much easier! Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Professional Chose Adobe InDesign InDesign is much more user friendly and is compatible with other Adobe products. InDesign is more versatile and more widely used. Compatibility with other designers, agencies, and promo companies makes work and collaboration easier. Incentivized Helpful? Leslie Ornelas Assistant Executive Director Chose Adobe InDesign Adobe InDesign is easier for me to use and has more features. When teaching myself how to use the software, I was able to find more videos online for helpful tips. Incentivized Helpful? Heather Robinette, MBA Marketing Manger Chose Adobe InDesign The main product I compared it against was Microsoft Publisher. It is not included on the list, but it is like a lite version of InDesign. If you really want to step it up a notch, then InDesign is for you. I included Photoshop because it can be similar in some cases of 1-2 … Incentivized Helpful? Audrey Hoffman Owner, Graphic and Web Designer Chose Adobe InDesign InDesign had more features and flexibility many years ago when I learned how to use it, and compared to Quark, I found it to be a better product and haven't gone back since. Incentivized Helpful? Paul Hughes Graphic Artist/Pre Press Chose Adobe InDesign The two big guns in page layout software are InDesign and Quark Express. At one time, Quark was the go-to software. A majority of Pre Press shops employed Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Quark Express. Over the years, though, InDesign has surpassed Quark. Incentivized Helpful? Leonardo Barbosa Corrêa Sócio / Designer Gráfico Chose Adobe InDesign Adobe InDesign is much more intuitive, has much more advanced tools, and is fully integrated with Adobe's other image and graphics editing software. It works better with text distribution and combining text with images. It provides better dynamic resources for a more … Incentivized Helpful? Jennifer Hess Designer, Developer & CEO Chose Adobe InDesign First, Microsoft products are notoriously difficult to work with, so the bar is already set pretty low. In my limited experience with MS Publisher in the past, the tools were not intuitive and the files did not save / share well outside of MS platforms. It has been many years … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Director Chose Adobe InDesign InDesign fits in perfectly with the Adobe Creative Suite and really works hand in hand with the other applications. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe InDesign I can’t offer a fair comparison between Adobe InDesign and the other software mentioned above because I have used Adobe InDesign the most and have only used the others one or two times. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe InDesign Publisher is something that we as an organization used to use at the beginning phase of our organization, and, as we grew and the team grew bigger and the needs increased, we needed a more professional tool. That's where Adobe InDesign came in. With Publisher, there was limited … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Adobe InDesign I use InDesign to incorporate these other two programs. Illustrator and Photoshop are used for creating graphics and images, and I am able to place them into my working InDesign file to create a more visually pleasing proposal. One thing that InDesign does better is allow you … Incentivized Helpful? Lisa Fargo Owner Chose Adobe InDesign I used Quark for over 4 years professionally prior to InDesign coming out, but all I can do is compare it to the original InDesign of 1999/2000. We exclusively use InDesign for multi-page layouts currently. Since it's the most recognizable industry format, we don't bother with … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Manager Chose Adobe InDesign Not fully integrated with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. We used Quark before we migrated to InDesign. Users don't want to go back, mostly because of hte tight integrations with the Adobe products. Even our freelancers and vendors use InDesign and would not go back to Qu… Incentivized Helpful? Chad Gabriel Sherpa of Purpose - Wake the World Chose Adobe InDesign If you use the Adobe Suite you must use InDesign. Quark will work as a good standalone product, but my experience was that there are more available users and support for InDesign. Quark is an inferior product. Incentivized Helpful?
Top Pros	Pro Pdf files Pro Easy to use Pro Pdf documents	Pro Multi page Pro Page layout Pro Easy to use
Top Cons	Minus User interface Minus Large files Minus Pro version	Minus Learning curve Minus New users Minus Steep learning curve

Best Alternatives
	Adobe Acrobat	Adobe InDesign
Small Businesses	Square 9 Softworks Score 9.7 out of 10	CorelDRAW Graphics Suite Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	MSB Docs Score 9.7 out of 10	Canva Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises	Kofax Capture Score 5.8 out of 10	No answers on this topic
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Adobe Acrobat	Adobe InDesign
Likelihood to Recommend	8.9 (475 ratings)	9.2 (95 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	10.0 (11 ratings)	10.0 (3 ratings)
Usability	8.6 (232 ratings)	9.0 (5 ratings)
Availability	10.0 (2 ratings)	9.0 (1 ratings)
Performance	9.8 (7 ratings)	9.0 (1 ratings)
Support Rating	8.1 (52 ratings)	5.0 (64 ratings)
In-Person Training	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Online Training	9.0 (1 ratings)	8.0 (1 ratings)
Implementation Rating	7.6 (4 ratings)	9.0 (1 ratings)
Configurability	- (0 ratings)	8.0 (1 ratings)
Ease of integration	10.0 (6 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Product Scalability	9.7 (2 ratings)	9.0 (1 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Adobe Acrobat	Adobe InDesign
Likelihood to Recommend	Adobe If your organization uses PDFs frequently, then Adobe Acrobat feels like must-have. I could not imagine our organization not using it. The ability to create, organize, and edit PDFs easily and intuitively are the main reasons my organization uses it. The other additional functions and features are "nice to haves", but ultimately, don't impact our day-to-day Incentivized Adam Montgomery Business Development Manager Read full review	Adobe Adobe InDesign is very well suited to image-heavy publications, such as children's books, cookbooks and coffee table books. It gives you almost complete control how to arrange these elements, and to be able to tweak them with precision. The software is an absolute necessity if one is developing interactive eBooks, especially for the Apple iTunes store. Unless coded by hand, I am not aware of any other tools to handle this. It is a powerful toolset, and can take on most anything publishing related that you throw at it. I personally have found that it doesn't do too well with reflowable eBooks (like for Kindle Amazon), but it retains that capability. Janeil Harricharan Freelancer Read full review
Pros	Adobe Easy to understand- the program has a very intuitive layout that is great for people who doesn't use the product very much Includes all features you might need. There are many features I didn't even think we would need that they have included. They have a very recognizable name so my clients feel they can trust what they are being asked to open/sign since the Adobe name is next to it. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Adobe Customization - With Adobe InDesign, as well as many other applications in the Adobe Creative Suite, I can fully customize my workspaces and save different workspaces. This makes it easy to navigate through my project and have the panels and tools I need easily accessible and configured based on my project needs. Styles - Adobe InDesign has character styles, object styles, and tables styles. This speeds up my workflows and allows me to easily apply the same format across multiple elements. This is super helpful, especially when working with length documents. File compatibility - I can easily export my files into so many different file types. The Book feature - This feature is really helpful when creating books or very long documents with multiple sections. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Cons	Adobe It would be good if Adobe Acrobat could utilize less system resources. I have had crashes due to memory and CPU load this week Quicker load times from a cold launch Easier collaborative commenting for offline documents - knowing where and who wrote what Ensuring documents don't have issues where text cannot be copied before publishing Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Adobe Ordering the pages with dragging is a bit counter-intuitive The "Links" section needs improvement - it might be very beneficial to have the links displayed (and saved) in the "links" sections for dragging and reusing without having to re-insert I think the relinking option works well - Would it be possible to the automatic relink to work even if file was renamed? A prompt will be [shown] to the user to help them approve or disapprove of this action. Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Likelihood to Renew	Adobe I bought a perpetual license to Acrobat some time ago, but if the software ever stopped being supported in my version of windows or other solution that makes me need to buy another license I would not hesitate to do so since it saves me a lot of headaches. There are workarounds to merge files and edit pdfs with an online interface but I dont think those are a good usage of time when Acrobat exists. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Adobe I've had great experiences with the product and plan to continue to use it. It has been my go-to product for designing and creating materials. I have had great luck with it and have been able to create all of the needed marketing materials that have been requested for our company. Incentivized Heather Robinette, MBA Marketing Manger Read full review
Usability	Adobe My overall experience with Adobe is great because because the it has almost all of the tools in one place and it can be used it for most of my work without going anywhere else. Because the tools are available right there in the main interface, it makes it very easy to use. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Adobe If you know what you are doing it is an amazingly granular and powerful application. You can control pretty much any aspect of the design and layout of your documents and make changes globally and rapidly. But, if you don't know what you are doing...you will be staring at your screen in bewilderment for a long time. You can learn it, but be ready for a hefty time investment. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Reliability and Availability	Adobe Pretty much always there for my business and personal needs. Incentivized Jamie Caroland Independent Consultant Read full review	Adobe I've needed Adobe InDesign team very little which is a bonus in and of itself. 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 One of the advantages of Adobe InDesign is it is faster and less glitchy than Microsoft Word. Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Support Rating	Adobe Because I don't need it. Used it years ago for account management/billing issues but they have changed the user experience so more of that can be managed online. If I have a question the knowledge base or a video that Adobe has posted answers Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Adobe Adobe support is ok but not great. Chat support often doesn't initially understand the question at-hand and it takes awhile to get to the right agent. Phone support has long wait times, and though I've had more luck there, it does take quite a time investment if you are looking for help. However, Adobe does have some online learning solutions available as well as a knowledgebase for frequently asked questions. If you're looking to learn how to use the platform, there are lots of resources which can typically be found in a few Google searches. If you have a technical issue with the system, that's going to be a bit more of a time investment as far as getting a tech's assistance to resolve the problem. Incentivized Jennifer Hess Designer, Developer & CEO Read full review
In-Person Training	Adobe No answers on this topic	Adobe Attending Adobe MAX each year is extremely valuable. Incentivized Chad Gabriel Sherpa of Purpose - Wake the World Read full review
Online Training	Adobe Answered basic questions. Incentivized Michael Craven President Read full review	Adobe The online training works well and is not wholly necessary as it is user-friendly and you can learn by doing. Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Implementation Rating	Adobe Works well with JamF and SmartDeploy. These are our Enterprise imaging solutions for Mac's and PC's. The Enterprise installer is required when pushing out this app. Incentivized JP Jerome Pierce Helpdesk Manager Read full review	Adobe Implementation was smooth and easy. Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Alternatives Considered	Adobe 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 or 2 that we find necessary to use at times. Incentivized Allen Gendler President Read full review	Adobe Microsoft products do not match the aesthetic tools that [Adobe] InDesign offers, cannot support the customizable options available for export, and do not produce documents with as high a degree of accessibility. That said, they do have their place in collaboration in a team- I'd consider Office to be the first step and [Adobe] InDesign to be the final product. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
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 Working in a cloud environment makes it easy to scale and share resources. Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Return on Investment	Adobe Adobe Acrobat has improved the security of our documents, resulting in less risk, as protecting documents is essential to ensure compliance with privacy laws. It saves our company money, as the product makes it easier for our employees to complete their jobs. The product assists our employees with providing quality work product. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Adobe Adobe InDesign has allowed us to tackle more projects in the same amount of time because of how well it integrates into our group's workflow. For awhile, we struggled only with a slowdown in digital guides. Because, as I mentioned earlier, there is not a clear way to combine individual documents into one document quickly, some editors were forced to spend a long time transferring each page into the final document that would be used with Publish Online. We have since found a workaround that does not include using Publish Online. Incentivized Courtney Birnbaum Senior Publications Specialist Read full review
ScreenShots	Adobe Acrobat Screenshots