Adobe Acrobat vs. Square 9 Softworks

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).
$19.99
per month
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
For document-intensive companies looking to improve business efficiency, Square 9 Softworks develops solutions for process automation that aim to drive increased productivity across all business applications.
$50
per month per user (5 User Minimum)
Pricing
Adobe AcrobatSquare 9 Softworks
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
Square 9 Process Automation Essentials
$50
per month per user (5 User Minimum)
Square 9 Digital Transformation Essentials
$68
per month per user (5 User Minimum)
Square 9 Enterprise Essentials
$75
per month per user (10 User Minimum)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe AcrobatSquare 9 Softworks
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional DetailsOffered via a three-tier pricing model that allows customers to scale their solution up or down based on the changing needs of their organization. Pricing excludes professional services and implementation fees
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe AcrobatSquare 9 Softworks
Considered Both Products
Adobe Acrobat
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Actually,, Adobe Acrobat is a GO TO PDF partner to all of these. It's a critical member of the production (output) family.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat has more features and is included in my Creative Cloud subscription.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
It has a better competitive price and provides more options than DocuSign or Canva when it comes to editing text documents. Have the ability to Edit not only text but reorder pages on a document makes it easier. Also, you can integrate the design option such as photoshop by …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is far more visual than any other document editor/viewer. As a veteran in the market, it understands its customers' needs well and has managed to stay relevant and keep its tools up-to-date. Furthermore, it maintains a good balance between the number of tools it …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is great for organizations to use, while the other tools are mostly targeted to individual users. We have tried other software, Adobe products with their ecosystem and different products with the same subscription, ended up being more useful than buying different …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
I am sure it works fine but I do not have any reason to ever use it instead of or in addition to acrobat. If the software is working fine, has the features you need and is already well known by the staff, it would be foolish to switch to a different software.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
I don't know if it's the many years of experience I have using Adobe Acrobat or that they just seem to evolve along with the industry, the other programs I have tried (not by choice) just don't seem to have the abilities I have found and used with Adobe Acrobat.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat runs in a parallel way to these other products. Only Illustrator has a function that you can save files as PDF and read them in acrobat Reader. And you can open PDF files and edit them. The thing is that for simple things and simple modifications Adobe Acrobat has …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is far superior to Microsoft Edge's PDF reader. It is far more robust in the features that are offered without sacrificing any user friendliness.
Bluebeam offers more detailed editing features, specifically for things like construction documents. However, …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is better for a few reasons: it has more powerful capabilities like editing, it's stable, it's exported files are universally compatible. The two I named above are ok in a pinch, but definitely not something we use if we can avoid it.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is the best tool to be able to view and amend documents especially for accessibility. While some other products might be better for editing the documents Adobe Acrobat will allow you to do a full accessibility report and ensure that the content of the document is …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
I have used eCopy Pro before. This, when I used it, was very limited on what I can do with whole pages or electronic signatures. It did not at the time have the function to get an electronic signature directly. It would allow me to erase meta data, but I am not sure that is …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
For what we need the application for, Acrobat is the right software. Yes, it is the right tool for the job and for our organization to complete the projects we need it to do and succeed with.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
It just seems like Adobe is PDF-first, and others are trying to catch up. I'm used to it, and it does everything I need.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat has the naming and reliability solidified all over the world and the name already share what's needed to work without security issues
Chose Adobe Acrobat
We like the interoperability between Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. Their is native support to export from or to either format, but Adobe Acrobat Reader is free & everyone can view & print PDF documents free of charge.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
DocuSign was the main alternative we looked at seriously. The E-Signature side is comparable, but DocuSign does not give you the broader PDF editing and OCR capabilities, so you would still need another tool alongside it. Acrobat made more sense as a single tool that covered …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
I got Adobe Acrobat for free
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is an amazing tool. I chose this one because I did not see any others that I had enough knowledge to give a true review. I am more of a creative user when it comes to Adobe. I am new to marketing.
Square 9 Softworks
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Comparatively, both of these applications are used for different aspects of the department, but they’re both useful. But overall, Square 9 Softworks is used for a more complex section of our day-to-day work, and with that being said, Square 9 Softworks is the application that …
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Cost was the big reason we went with Square 9 Softworks. Other products wanted to add a license for this and that and all were subscription based and significantly added to the cost of the product. Square 9 Softworks licening and support costs made it an easy choice for us.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
We tried Etrieve before Square 9 and it never got off the ground. Our requirements were too complex and the platform could not accommodate them. Square 9 offered the flexibility and customization we needed from the start. Support worked with us to build workflows that actually …
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Sharepoint and Square 9 Softworks are similar in some ways and totally different in others. They both do workflow, although Square 9 Workflow gives administrators more options. They both have a repository, although Square 9 GlobalSearch is more structured in terms of …
Chose Square 9 Softworks
We have been using Square 9 Softworks for over a decade and before that we did everything with hard paper.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Laserfiche could not even complete their installation. Square 9 Softworks was able to come in and rescue the failed project. We have hardly scratched the surface of what we believe we can do in terms of more implementations of the Square 9 Softworks program in other business …
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Unfortunately, I have no experience with any other software used at Harrison REMC besides Square 9.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
This is the only product that I can think of that we use so far. But we are willing to explore other options, such as automating the invoices being directly uploaded into our accounting software. It would definitely cut down on the time our accounts payable has to input all the …
Chose Square 9 Softworks
We've been with Square 9 for many years so have not been in the market for some time so not familiar with the competition out there
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks is very different from other software that I have used. It acts more of a file box than anything else.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
I have used Agris in the past, and the filing cabinet ability that was implemented was at the end of my time using it, so I never learned it as well as I have been able to with Square 9 Softworks. As, for the last 3 years, I have used it on a daily basis. I personally didn't …
Chose Square 9 Softworks
I like the Square 9 Softworks platform because it is simple to use and visually simple.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks is very easy to setup, use, and maintain, when compared with SharePoint from Microsoft. Also, support is extremely easy to work with, more so than Microsoft. They are easy to reach, and easy to work with. Square 9 Softworks is a niche software company and a …
Chose Square 9 Softworks
We reached out to Iron Mountain but did not pursue this option since we had an established relationship with Square 9 Softworks that could be expanded and not a complete restart.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Features look similar but the price point is much more affordable for my current employer. Square 9's training material could use an update but works overall.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
We chose to leave ImageSilo and go with Square 9 Softworks because 1) ImageSilo was inconsistent and buggy and 2) Square 9 Softworks was streamlined and had a lot of helpful features. It seemed easier to maintain.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks met the needs of what was needed.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 was a better fit for our organization due to the costs and features that it offers. With Square 9, we were able to get 3 years of licensing for about 1 year of the competitors licensing costs.

Square 9 is also much easier to manage and use on a day-to-day basis than …
Chose Square 9 Softworks
I have not used any other document storage besides Square 9.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
We did not research other product offerings so I have nothing to compare the program to. I can only share why we selected Square 9 Softworks to use as our document management system. Square 9 Softworks was amazing to work with from day 1 - we worked with Xerox initially for …
Chose Square 9 Softworks
The main thing we liked was the ease of use of GlobalSearch. Also, the people doing the demo were able to answer somewhat technical questions without having to get back to us a day later from one of their more technical people.
Chose Square 9 Softworks
I have not used other document management software. Prior to Global Search we manually entered metadata through Adobe Acrobat. This was extremely time consuming and not exactly user friendly. Global Search cut the indexing time to less than 1/4 the time we were spending on each …
Chose Square 9 Softworks
Never used another similar product
Best Alternatives
Adobe AcrobatSquare 9 Softworks
Small Businesses
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.3 out of 10
PowerDMS by NEOGOV
PowerDMS by NEOGOV
Score 7.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
MSB Docs
MSB Docs
Score 9.4 out of 10
MSB Docs
MSB Docs
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
M‑Files
M‑Files
Score 8.9 out of 10
M‑Files
M‑Files
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe AcrobatSquare 9 Softworks
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
4.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
7.9
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Performance
5.3
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.5
(0 ratings)
7.9
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.9
(0 ratings)
6.4
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.9
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.1
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
1.0
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe AcrobatSquare 9 Softworks
Likelihood to Recommend
When asked, I tend to suggest Adobe Acrobat vs Docusign, it's easier to use, cheaper and has more editing options available. I suggest Adobe Acrobat for many things over other programs, sometimes the only issues is the cost, you need to own Adobe Acrobat to do a lot of things, and the cost can be can an issue for people.
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Great for automating invoice processing where you want to set it and forget it. Also works well for document storage where you need things organized and easy to find. If you have complex requirements and need flexibility, this platform can handle it.
Not ideal if you expect a lot of exceptions or manual intervention since troubleshooting misrouted documents can be tricky. Also not the best fit if you want something that works out of the box with zero setup. You get the most out of it when you invest time upfront to build workflows.
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Pros
  • ISO standard PDF creation is critical for print production, so that there are no surprises on press.
  • Adobe Acrobat's security features are simple to use, and effective.
  • Most clients have no difficulty with the commenting features in Adobe Acrobat, which makes review quick and simple.
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  • The software is very flexible, and the technicians were great at implementing our customizations for the PO project.
  • While indexing fields in Global Search, the Key Free tool works great.
  • Global Search is well-organized. It's easy to navigate and find your documents.
  • The process for completing your project was well done. Communicating with individuals at Square 9 who were responsible for different aspects of the project was easy.
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Cons
  • For as amazing as Adobe Acrobat is, a lot of the time it does feel like one of the more clunky and slow Adobe programs.
  • Ability to edit text! Adobe Acrobat sometimes struggles with fonts and editing the text ends up messing with the text in weird ways.
  • It would be cool to have multiple versions of the same preflight single fixups! I use the same single fixup but need to adjust it for multiple sizes! I'd like to be able to save another version of it with the different sizes.
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  • GlobalSearch could use some enhancements in layout - THIS IS FIXED WITH THE NEWEST VERSION OF GLOBALSEARCH 6.3 and their Sleek GUI GlobalSearch GO! - WELL DONE!
  • GlobalSearch could use external sharing of documents THIS IS FIXED WITH THE NEWEST VERSION OF GLOBALSEARCH 6.3 and their Sleek GUI GlobalSearch GO! - WELL DONE!
  • GlobalForms could have better formatting tools to enhance the fields and text formatting
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Likelihood to Renew
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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We are definitely renewing our SmartSearch. This is the only place all of our companies contracts and regulatory filings are kept. Our company would lose track of all expiring contracts if we did not renew. We would also need to spend many hours figuring out a new organizational system for all of our files, as well as savings the documents from SmartSearch onto the computer.
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Usability
We have not experienced any major problems using Adobe Acrobat within our company. We use a variety of computer devices, and it works well on all machines. The only minor issues we have had occur have been the software getting "hung up" during some printing tasks and conversion tasks, but these sorts of inconveniences have been few and far between.
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The items I am searching for are easily found. They are found in at least 95% of the searches. The failure rate generally is related to another employees user error or a template error set up by our Square 9 team in house.
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Reliability and Availability
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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Square-9 can get this product out to you in almost the same hour your order it. We got ours very fast.
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Performance
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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With the PDF projected viewer, the document retrieval-to-display can drag for a second more than some systems, and the capture workflow if you overload a server array can also drag, but those are the only two issues we've ever seen with this product, and they are not serious issues at all.
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Support Rating
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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We had one "production down" incident that took about a day to get help on. I think that's a bit too long. The support people seem confident but not that friendly. I feel like I'm bothering them when I get help, but they get the job done.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
It would have been higher, but the training is a bit muted for the lesser qualified office equipment vendors who signed up as partners to sell and support it. The more experienced ECM vendors and customer end-users will find the training very good, but a bit slow.
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Online Training
Answered basic questions.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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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I think the implementation could have gone a little smoother than it did. Now that I know how to use the software, I could do it myself. I feel that as an organization, we could have been a little better prepared. If the consultant was more aware of what we were looking for, they could have assisted in setting up some workflows for us as per the contract. But because we were not prepared, the initial implementation process was a little painful. That said, adding a document management system to ANY business kinda means everyone has to re-think the way they do their work which can be difficult for some staff.
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Alternatives Considered
I am sure it works fine but I do not have any reason to ever use it instead of or in addition to acrobat. If the software is working fine, has the features you need and is already well known by the staff, it would be foolish to switch to a different software.
Read full review
Comparatively, both of these applications are used for different aspects of the department, but they’re both useful. But overall, Square 9 Softworks is used for a more complex section of our day-to-day work, and with that being said, Square 9 Softworks is the application that brings us to excel in our everyday work. OptiSigns is mostly used for our digital signage.
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Scalability
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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The scale-ability is quite good actually, but you need competent sales/support folks providing it to you, so the scale is set right for the demands of your system use. Some resellers are not good at doing this, some are fantastic. If you are scaled correctly at first implementation, you'll be very happy with this system.
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Return on Investment
  • Time spent on manual document prep dropped noticeably once OCR became part of the workflow, about roughly 3-4 hours a week across the team, just from not retyping scanned documents.
  • Fewer errors in documents going out to clients because edits happen in the original file rather than recreating things from scratch.
  • The pricing is a real negative ROI consideration. At this cost, you expect the performance to be consistently solid, but it isn't always, which makes it harder to fully recommend internally.
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  • Reduction in human error through manual data entry process now being automated
  • Reduction in cost due to automation allowing the function to not require a full time employee
  • Reduction in time spent performing the previous manual tasks. Example: on our consolidated shipment days, it could take doc clerk 2-3 hours to prepare master document package. This has been reduced to 30 minutes or less (depending on size of shipment and time needed for OCR to complete)
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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.

Square 9 Softworks Screenshots

Screenshot of GlobalSearch Go, which organizes documents based on extracted data.Screenshot of InquireAI, which offers AI-driven data extraction of invoice and receipt fields to eliminate the need for manual data entry.Screenshot of a contract. Contracts are a complex document format that can require contextual understanding to collect accurate data points.Screenshot of where using natural language prompts, InquireAI works as an agent to extract, classify, and analyze information from any type of document.Screenshot of the invoice review process, where users can be notified by email when a pending approval is available.Screenshot of a fully indexed document. These can be released for secure access within GlobalSearch or sent to other repositories, including QuickBooks, Dynamics 35 Business Central, Citrix ShareFile, or Google Drive.