Adobe Acrobat vs. Formstack Forms

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
Formstack Forms
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Formstack is an online form building solution. Its drag-and-drop web form creator gives digital marketers a tool for online data collection and engagement. Users can collect payments and pass form data to popular marketing apps through third-party integrations. With Formstack, users can capture responses, store the information and share it with their teams.
$50
per month
Pricing
Adobe AcrobatFormstack Forms
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
Enterprise
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe AcrobatFormstack Forms
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPlans start at $50/month (billed annually), including: 20 Digital Forms 1,000 Submissions Per Form 14,400 API Calls Per Day Drag-and-Drop Form Builder Custom Themes Payment Integrations Salesforce Integration SSO User Management Form Prefill
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe AcrobatFormstack Forms
Considered Both Products
Adobe Acrobat
Chose Adobe Acrobat
We considered getting PandaDoc, which seems to perform well, but the cost was ultimately not as competitive. TaxDome is a CRM for tax firms. It contains a PDF editor, available at no additional cost. Ultimately, we do plan to divest from Adobe Acrobat and use TaxDome's …
Formstack Forms

No answer on this topic

Features
Adobe AcrobatFormstack Forms
Survey Format & Appearance
Comparison of Survey Format & Appearance features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Formstack Forms
8.5
64 Ratings
6% above category average
Survey templates00 Ratings8.556 Ratings
Themes00 Ratings8.057 Ratings
Custom logo/branding00 Ratings8.961 Ratings
Survey Content
Comparison of Survey Content features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Formstack Forms
7.6
61 Ratings
11% below category average
Changes to live survey00 Ratings6.556 Ratings
Question design help00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Multiple question types00 Ratings8.261 Ratings
Survey Logic
Comparison of Survey Logic features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Formstack Forms
7.5
61 Ratings
10% below category average
Survey logic flexibility00 Ratings7.561 Ratings
Survey Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Survey Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Formstack Forms
8.6
62 Ratings
6% above category average
Response tracking00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Data export00 Ratings10.062 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings7.359 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings5.751 Ratings
Analytics00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Survey Administration & Security
Comparison of Survey Administration & Security features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Formstack Forms
10.0
60 Ratings
15% above category average
Access controls00 Ratings10.058 Ratings
Compliance00 Ratings10.052 Ratings
Survey Distribution
Comparison of Survey Distribution features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Formstack Forms
8.0
1 Ratings
1% below category average
Vendor-offered crowdsourcing00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Respondent restrictions00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
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User Ratings
Adobe AcrobatFormstack Forms
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(812 ratings)
7.7
(77 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(45 ratings)
2.0
(13 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(254 ratings)
9.1
(9 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(3 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
5.8
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.2
(63 ratings)
5.9
(8 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.8
(15 ratings)
1.0
(2 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
4.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe AcrobatFormstack Forms
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.
Read full review
Formstack
Formstack makes it easy to create a variety of forms. I have used it for event interest and registrations, email list sign-ups, and surveys. I have found it easy to customize, and easy to export data for import into other systems (e.g., CRM).
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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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Formstack
  • Allows for unique situations. As a school, we don't have the luxury of being cookie cutter. Neither do our forms.
  • Support. If we don't know how to do it, their support team has been very helpful and actually attempts to understand the issue on hand.
  • User friendliness. In our field we have a phrase: "what if you get hit by a bus?" With Formstack, you can "get hit by the bus" and someone else can jump in and still keep things running (this is used as a phrase for illness, not termination).
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
Formstack
  • Setting up our multi-step form took some getting used to. Some of the branching logic configuration wasn't as intuitive as would be ideal.
  • Since we were pushing data directly into Hubspot, I found it cumbersome to deal with data storage limits within Formstack. I would get frequent notices that new responses were not being stored in Formstack and that I needed to upgrade or delete data. I got tired of that.
  • More/easier support for custom fonts would have been a huge plus. We were able to customize the form's appearance, but had to make some concessions in that regard.
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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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Formstack
Our user base has come to rely on Formstack to get forms done. The Formstack tools make it easy to start from scratch or copy an existing form to "quick start" a new, similar form. The price is right and frees up IT staff to do more transformative work.
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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
Read full review
Formstack
It's easy to learn how to use, generally easy for clients to use, and overall I've never had an overwhelmingly negative experience with it. While there are a few tweaks that could make it really shine, Formstack Forms serves almost all our needs and we're super happy with it.
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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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Formstack
No answers on this topic
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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Formstack
No answers on this topic
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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Formstack
The agents in the original group, especially the ones in cahoots with the developers, are really solid and know what they're talking about--I'm looking at you, Collin. The 'Tier 1' support agents that typically reply to the tickets are really spotty. If you have an overly technical question, i.e. bugfix, or describe a feature from a few years back that randomly disappeared, these agents typically will give you what feels like a generic reply and not know what you're talking about.
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Online Training
Adobe
Answered basic questions.
Read full review
Formstack
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
Read full review
Formstack
We implemented on one of the earlier versions. Through continuous engineering improvements, the interface keeps getting easier and more intuitive. Therefore, later implementations keep getting easier and better.
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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
Formstack
Drupal is a much more customizable platform, however you must have someone build the forms first and then you can work with them if you do not have the programming knowledge. If you have any changes to make, it can sometimes be both a time consuming and difficult process. Formstack is much more efficient if you do not have an in house programmer.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Adobe
I am not responsible for sales or purchasing
Read full review
Formstack
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.
Read full review
Formstack
No answers on this topic
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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Formstack
  • Positive - ability to analyze submission trends - e.g. when a marketing email is sent, looking at increased form viewing and submissions in relation to the sending of the campaign.
  • Immediate response - those that submit forms receive immediate response that their form has been submitted.
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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.