Adobe Acrobat vs. Dropbox Business

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
Dropbox Business
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Dropbox Business expands on the company's cloud storage service by providing additional features, such as lost file recovery for an extended period, integration with popular office suites (e.g. Office 365), the Dropbox Paper collaboration extension, two-factor authentication (2FA) and single sign-on (SSO), tiered administrator controls and granular permission sharing, remote device wipe, API, and other features of use to larger groups and businesses.
$15
per month
Pricing
Adobe AcrobatDropbox Business
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
Standard
$15
per user/per month
Advanced
$25
per user/per month
Enterprise
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe AcrobatDropbox Business
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe AcrobatDropbox Business
Considered Both Products
Adobe Acrobat
Chose Adobe Acrobat
I did not evaluate any other pdf management programs other than Adobe Acrobat DC. I was familiar with other Adobe pdf products and never thought to explore any others. I have been very pleased with Adobe Acrobat DC and have not seen the need to look at other pdf management …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
We have also used Dropbox, but the features are very different and the capabilities for edits are different. With Dropbox, there is still some wait time and I have to switch to a separate program to make edits to documents. Which makes its ease of use no comparison to Adobe …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat uses the standard of the best PDF solution we know. It provides the necessary tools to create, edit and sign PDF files anywhere. Get the necessary tools to speed up the installation and manage the updates. You can be sure that the PDF files of the company will be …
Dropbox Business
Chose Dropbox Business
No other products to compare with. This has been the only product I've used so far.
Chose Dropbox Business
We use many different file storage, versioning, sharing and document collaboration services. We are not exclusively using Dropbox. Rather, we use Dropbox Business when it is appropriate, like delivering to clients who use it. We also use it internally some, and as mentioned, we …
Chose Dropbox Business
Microsoft Office 365 and their file-sharing capabilities for businesses like Sharepoint and One Drive were an absolute disaster for us. Our files were so large, and we had so many of them that we attempted to upload all of our files 3-5X, and each time they failed/canceled out …
Chose Dropbox Business
Google Drive is great as well. In both cases, if you are using a lot of storage space or sharing video files, you will need to upgrade to a paid option. If you're using a bunch of other Google products then it makes sense to pay for all their suite options, they may make sense. …
Chose Dropbox Business
I think the desktop element of Dropbox was really appealing. I haven't explored enough about Google Drive to know if they have some similar functionalities, but have used it only for some personal storage. For our team, Dropbox was a leader in the industry, so we felt most …
Features
Adobe AcrobatDropbox Business
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Dropbox Business
8.8
129 Ratings
6% above category average
Versioning00 Ratings8.9101 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings9.2112 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings9.1105 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings8.2119 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings8.5125 Ratings
File search00 Ratings9.1125 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings8.9122 Ratings
Cloud Storage Security & Administration
Comparison of Cloud Storage Security & Administration features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Dropbox Business
9.0
128 Ratings
4% above category average
User and role management00 Ratings9.2113 Ratings
File organization00 Ratings9.2125 Ratings
Device management00 Ratings8.7107 Ratings
Cloud Storage Platform
Comparison of Cloud Storage Platform features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Dropbox Business
8.9
125 Ratings
3% above category average
Performance00 Ratings9.0125 Ratings
Reliability00 Ratings9.0125 Ratings
Storage Reports00 Ratings8.691 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe AcrobatDropbox Business
Small Businesses
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Score 9.7 out of 10
SugarSync
SugarSync
Score 4.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
MSB Docs
MSB Docs
Score 9.4 out of 10
Druva Security Cloud
Druva Security Cloud
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
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Tungsten Capture
Score 8.0 out of 10
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Score 9.4 out of 10
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User Ratings
Adobe AcrobatDropbox Business
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(812 ratings)
8.5
(130 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(45 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(254 ratings)
9.0
(19 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(3 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
5.8
(10 ratings)
8.0
(15 ratings)
Support Rating
9.2
(63 ratings)
8.4
(27 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.8
(15 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(4 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
4.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(8 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.0
(4 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
1.0
(1 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe AcrobatDropbox Business
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.
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Dropbox
Everywhere as aforementioned it is well suited ... The largest and most appropriate... A business can never ever have too many locations of its data stored. This option allows my company to have our data stored in one location and everyone works it in real time whereas the updates go in "Real time" no matter who is working that file. This is the most awesome trick of the entire program not to mention that I can see everything that Bobbiesue is working on out west at the same time pull another activity report to see if indeed Peggy logged in for work from home at 2p yesterday as she stated she did. Its a check and balance for small businesses such as ours that runs on the honor system for telework employees. At this time, there just is not any less appropriate!
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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!
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Dropbox
  • It enables us to share documents and workflow to all employees for whom access is allowed regardless of where in the world they may be located.
  • Dropbox Business provides a means to safely store our documents without having to have physical copies.
  • Dropbox also allows for easy organization of our documents in folders and such in the system.
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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.
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Dropbox
  • I deeply dislike the navigation. I find it very clunky and hard and not intuitive. A few years ago Dropbox redesigned its navigation and I'm frequently at a loss to figure out where to access the option I need.
  • It should be quicker and easier to figure out how to send a file. I wish I could do that from the drop-down menu in my taskbar under the Dropbox logo.
  • I wish I had the option under the same drop-down menu in my taskbar under the Dropbox logo to go to where the files are on my laptop, which I find much easier to navigate.
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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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Dropbox
Dropbox is very expensive and its price is not as competitive as it was. We are looking for an alternative that will enable as to subscribe more users at a more affordable cost. Also, we did not like Dropbox customer service, and felt that they should have found a way to compensate us for some of the damage they were responsible for when restoring our data.
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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
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Dropbox
Well-designed, smart, packed with functionality without being overwhelming—Dropbox knows what they are doing and they do it well. They know what users want from the service and they make sure that all the normal use cases are intuitive and at your fingertips. I have never had a hard time finding things with Dropbox and I think their usability is excellent.
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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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Dropbox
At least once a week the app crashes on my computer and causes files to stop syncing. It is an easy fix to re-open the app, however I have to notice the app stopped working to realize it needs to be reopened.
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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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Dropbox
The Dropbox site and tools load in a reasonable amount of time. I don't feel like their site and app performance is any better or worse than any other paid product that I've seen offered by any other large company. Compared to a competing product like Google Drive, the performance is probably about the same.
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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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Dropbox
I give it a nine because I haven't ever had to use the support or help. I would give it a ten but since I've never had to use them, I can't really give a full review of how their support works. I've talked to market research teams from Dropbox about new features, but have not had to get any assistance with a problem yet.
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Online Training
Adobe
Answered basic questions.
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Dropbox
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
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Dropbox
The implementation was actually very simple. Again, as stated previously, the most intriguing part of the entire exercise was the implementation of the directory structure for each account. Once you design and implement it for one, it becomes quite simple to replicate for each account you implement thereafter. You just really need to take time to ensure you implement the first perfectly and those that follow on will be likewise work efficiently and easily.
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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
Dropbox
Dropbox Business is dependable, adaptable, and cost-effective for our businesses. On the inside, it’s comparable to other file-sharing and storage. Also, file access and navigation are much faster. We use it to share documents and store data and files for our business purposes. And I’ve never been convinced of other tools’ integrity or dependability. Dropbox Business has good connectivity and is smooth to use.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Adobe
I am not responsible for sales or purchasing
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Dropbox
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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Dropbox
We've used this when we were 2 users and when we were 20. It did not make any difference. Even when we've had to scale down and fire 10 employees, it was still easy to salvage all the material and keep it organized within Dropbox.
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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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Dropbox
  • Improved risk mitigation - know our files are encrypted.
  • Expiring Shared Links are a must have.
  • Positive impact from Happy Customers. No more trying to send cumbersome encrypted emails that customers struggle with. Dropbox makes it easy for them to retrieve their files.
  • Collaboration makes it faster for us to complete plan documents with our customers.
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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.