9 Best PDF Editors In 2026 | 30+ Personally Tested PDF Tools
Looking for the best PDF editor, but tired of marketing claims, endless feature lists, and just simply want to know which one is right for you based on independent and real testing?
There are over 100 PDF editors on the market, but finding one that is actually worth paying for is harder than it looks.
Over the past three years, I tested more than 30 PDF tools and spent 200+ hours comparing their editing features, OCR accuracy, AI tools, pricing, performance, and overall usability.
In this guide, I break down the best PDF editors in 2026 based on hands-on testing and real-world use cases, so you can quickly find the right option without wasting time or money.
Let’s dive in!
Best PDF Editors in 2026 (Quick Picks)
🏆 Best overall: EaseUS PDF Editor
🤖 Best for AI-powered PDF workflows: Tenorshare PDNob
📂 Best for document management & e-signatures: pdfFiller
🌍 Best for browser-based PDF editing: Smallpdf
🆓 Best completely free PDF editor: PDFgear
🖥️ Best PDF editor for Mac users: PDF Expert
👥 Best for teams & business workflows: ONLYOFFICE PDF Editor
⚙️ Best for advanced editing features: Foxit
🏛️ Best enterprise-grade PDF solution: Adobe Acrobat
How We Test PDF Editors
To keep our reviews and final scores fair and consistent, we evaluate every PDF editor using a standardized testing framework built on over 3 years of hands-on experience testing these tools in real-world scenarios.
Our scoring breakdown after testing 30+ PDF editors:
🛠️ Features & functionality — 60%
🖥️ User interface — 10%
🔐 Security — 10%
💰 Pricing — 10%
👥 Real-world experience — 10%
You will find each tool’s final score in the comparison table and review sections, along with detailed hands-on reviews explaining the reasoning behind every rating.
However, the rankings in this list are not based only on the overall scores. Each PDF editor earned its place based on specific use cases, strengths, and the type of user it serves best.
Want a detailed breakdown of how we test each category?
Learn exactly how we test tools → Review methodology
Compare the Best PDF Editors in 2026
Here are the top 9 PDF editors that stood out the most to me in 2026:
|
PDF editors |
Best for 🎯 |
Standout feature ⚡ |
Main drawback⚠️ |
Pricing starts 💰 |
Test score ⭐ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Best overall |
Fast, distraction-free reading + easy editing tools |
No built-in AI features |
Free plan + paid from $49.95/year |
4.6/5 |
|
|
Best AI-powered PDF editor with OCR |
Powerful AI features and accurate OCR |
No Android version |
Free plan + paid from $49.99/year |
4.6/5 |
|
|
Best PDF editor for document management & e-signatures |
Full document workflow + advanced e-signature tools |
Lacks advanced PDF reading features |
Free trial+ paid from $96/year |
4.1/5 |
|
|
Best browser-based PDF editor |
Works in browser + Google Workspace integration |
Limited annotation tools |
Free plan+ paid from $120/year |
4.4/5 |
|
|
Best free PDF editor |
Completely free + cross-platform support + basic AI tools |
Privacy concerns |
Free |
4.1/5 |
|
|
Best PDF editor for Mac users |
Optimized for macOS + fast performance with large files |
Platform support |
Free plan+ paid from $79.99/year |
4.4/5 |
|
|
Best PDF editor for teams & business workflows |
Collaboration tools + shared workspaces + document management |
Limited PDF editing and reading features |
Free plan+ paid from $240/year |
4.3/5 |
|
|
Best PDF editor for advanced editing features |
Advanced editing + OCR + strong alternative to Adobe Acrobat |
Higher pricing than budget tools |
Free plan+ paid from $129.99/year |
4.1/5 |
|
|
Best enterprise PDF editor |
Industry-standard features + strong security + full PDF toolkit |
Expensive compared to competitors |
Free plan+ paid from $179.88/year |
3.8/5 |
Detailed Reviews of the Best PDF Editors
Let’s see the best PDF editors in 2026!
EaseUS PDF Editor
EaseUS PDF Editor is an affordable yet powerful PDF editor for Windows and Mac, offering strong OCR, editing, and security features with an intuitive interface.
Bottom line
Individuals who need a budget-friendly PDF editor with an extensive feature set
Enterprises
Fast, distraction-free reading + easy editing tools
AI features
After testing 30+ PDF editors, EaseUS PDF Editor stood out with its PDF reading tools, fast performance, and easy-to-use editing tools. It offers the right balance of features, usability, and pricing, making it an excellent alternative to Adobe Acrobat for individuals and small businesses.
My experience with EaseUS PDF
EaseUS PDF has an intuitive interface and some useful tools for editing and reading PDF files. This tool is very simple.
You can find all the tools you need, whether it is OCR or annotation tools in seconds. Furthermore, I did not notice any performance issues even when I worked with larger PDF documents.
There is one key limitation here: the AI assistant is currently only available online.
Nevertheless, I had a good experience with EaseUS PDF, and it is ultimately an affordable PDF editor for Windows & Mac users.
Who gets the most value from EaseUS PDF Editor
When EaseUS PDF Editor might not work for you
If you think you may need the advanced features, use the above link for signup and enter the code THEBUSINESSDIVE20 to receive 20% OFF if you fall in love with EaseUS PDF later.
Key Features
PDF reader: EaseUS PDF Editor offers single and two-page views. You can decide between scrolling the pages or automatically jumping to the next page once you reach the end of the PDF page.
PDF editing tools: With this PDF editor, you can edit all the elements of the PDF files, including text, images, shapes, and shades. However, if you select the “all options” tab, you can edit the item you click on. It provides a straightforward way to edit PDF text and images.
Annotate PDFs: You can highlight text, use underline, or strikethrough, but there are also other options. For example, you can add sticky notes and callouts, or you can even draw.
Organize PDFs: Using the Page Tab, you can rearrange your PDF pages, merge, crop, delete, split, and extract pages. So, it has all the tools you need to smoothly organize your PDF pages.
PDF forms and signatures: EaseUS PDF offers simple solutions for creating and filling out forms. When creating a form, you can choose from inserting a text field, checkboxes, drop-down menus, and more. You can also create your digital signature with one click.
Convert PDFs: You can convert PDF documents into Docx files, Excel, PPT, image files, TXT, or HTML formats.
Optical character recognition: EaseUS PDF also has an OCR tool that recognizes text and converts image files to PDF documents.
Password protection: It also has security features, so you can protect your PDF files with passwords.
AI tools: Although it does not have an in-built AI assistant yet, you can use the online PDF editor version where you can access this tool. Apart from this aspect, it works like the other AI assistants.
If you think you may need the advanced features, use the above link for signup and enter the code THEBUSINESSDIVE20 to receive 20% OFF if you fall in love with EaseUS PDF later.
Pricing structure
EaseUS’s monthly plan is $19.95, while the yearly plan is $49.95. They include one license for one computer and 1-year free upgrades.
If you go for the lifetime upgrades, it will cost you $79.95.
Overall, EaseUS is currently one of the cheapest PDF editors on the market.
Pros and Cons of EaseUS PDF Editor
Here are the most important pros and cons I discovered.
EaseUS PDF Editor’s pros
EaseUS PDF Editor’s cons
🔎Read my full review: EaseUS PDF Editor Review 2026 | My Unfiltered Opinion
If you think you may need the advanced features, use the above link for signup and enter the code THEBUSINESSDIVE20 to receive 20% OFF if you fall in love with EaseUS PDF later.
Tenorshare PDNob
PDNob is an AI-powered PDF editor for Windows and Mac that offers many features to edit, read, organize, and annotate your documents.
Bottom line
If you need advanced PDF editing & OCR features
Users need to edit a PDF on Android
Powerful OCR features
No Android version
PDNob is a powerful, well-rounded PDF editor with strong AI features, accurate OCR, fast performance, and an easy-to-use interface. If you’re looking for a modern alternative to the popular PDF editors, this is probably your best option right now.
My experience with Tenorshare PDNob after using it for 2 years
After I tested PDNob, it became my default PDF editor, so needless to say, it performed well during testing. But let’s break it down.
PDNob PDF editor offers a wide range of PDF editing and annotation tools. With its easy-to-use tools and user-friendly interface, I had almost zero learning curve with this PDF editor.
It has one of the most accurate OCR engines, and its advanced PDF reading capabilities make it easy to read long PDF documents.
During my Tenorshare PDNob review, I especially loved the AI features. I received relevant and accurate answers to my questions. So, it helped me a lot to extract insights from my PDF files and save time.
To summarize, I had an absolutely positive experience with the PDNob PDF editor, and I recommend it to those who need a simple yet effective solution for PDF management.
Compared to Adobe Acrobat or Foxit, PDNob offers a similar feature set but at a more affordable price.
Best use cases for Tenorshare PDNob
Where Tenorshare PDNob falls short
Key features
PDF reader: PDNob has the essential tools to read PDFs, including more layout options and dark mode.
PDF editing tools: When editing your PDFs, PDNob uses a drag-and-drop system. With this PDF editor, you can make changes to the text, pictures, and more. If you select a text box, you can move it around, change the font type, adjust the alignment, and more. Nevertheless, you can insert images and add or remove watermarks and backgrounds, so you have many possibilities to work with your PDF document.
Optical character recognition: PDNob offers an optical character recognition feature as well to edit and convert scanned PDFs. You can find the OCR feature on the top sidebar. Overall, the OCR was quite accurate, and I was satisfied with this feature when testing.
Convert PDFs: Using PDNob, you can convert PDF format into Excel, PowerPoint, images, Word documents, and more. The conversion takes 10-15 seconds, and you can work on the document in the desired format.
Annotate PDFs: Using this PDF editor, you can easily add annotations, for example, comments, text highlights, and more. Similar to the editing features, annotating PDFs is very simple with PDNob.
Organize PDFs: If you select the Page tab on the top tools, you can access PDNob’s tools to organize your PDF pages. You can select the pages’ order, insert a new one, rotate, split, and replace them if you want.
PDF compress: You can compress your PDF files with the PDNob. If you select high quality, you can reduce the file size without losing quality. It is very accessible; you can find this feature on your home tab.
Password protection: If you click on “Protect,” you can easily add password protection to your PDF files and restrict access to more sensitive data. When restricting access to PDF documents, PDNob provides numerous options. For instance, you can only allow others to print, but do not allow editing.
AI tools: One of the best features of the PDNob PDF editor is the AI-powered tools. You can ask the AI assistant to summarize your PDF document in seconds. Moreover, you can chat with your PDFs and get instant answers about your PDF documents. Lastly, you can ask AI to translate, rewrite, or explain the PDF for you.
Use the above link and the discount code TS-TBD-20 to get 20% OFF from the paid plans.
What does it cost?
To try out PDNob, you get a one-week free trial, so you can test everything before committing.
If you want to use the advanced features on an ongoing basis, PDNob currently costs $49.99 with a promotion, while the regular price is $159.98 per year, which is still significantly cheaper than Adobe Acrobat.
Furthermore, you can buy the lifetime license for $64.99 and access unlimited AI features for $39.99.
Tenorshare PDNob’s pros and cons
These were the most important pros and cons I discovered during my testing.
Tenorshare PDNob’s pros
Tenorshare PDNob’s cons
🔎Read my full review: Tenorshare PDNob Review 2026 | My Unfiltered Opinion
Use the above link and the discount code TS-TBD-20 to get 20% OFF on the paid plans.
pdfFiller
pdffiller is a cloud-based PDF editor with numerous tools to work with your PDF documents. It offers a signing and editing solution that lets users sign and edit documents, send them for signature, and manage the full electronic document workflow in one place.
Bottom line
Individuals & teams need an all-in-one cloud solution
If you need a free PDF editor
Offers many tools for document management
No advanced PDF reading features
pdfFiller is a cloud-based PDF editor with massive document management & team collaboration features.
Compared to other PDF editors on this list, it stands out because it provides a complete solution to sign and edit documents, send them for signature, and manage the full electronic document workflow in one place.
Using pdfFiller in daily workflows
Honestly, pdfFiller surprised me. With its solid team collaboration and document management features, it showed something different after testing many PDF editors.
pdfFiller’s signing and editing solutions allow users to sign documents, edit them, send them for signature, and manage the full electronic document workflow.
As someone who works in a team, it helped a lot in my daily work that I can organize documents in team and personal spaces as well, and I have plenty of options to share documents.
When editing PDFs, it has various tools to manipulate the file. Here, I especially loved how easy it is to add, remove, and adjust images.
If I consider its feature set, the only thing I missed was some more advanced PDF reading features, but apart from that, I was fully satisfied.
Who pdfFiller is best for
When pdfFiller is not the right choice
Key Features
PDF reader: pdfFiller provides the essential PDF reading features, such as zoom in & out after you upload the file from your local drives, Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive.
PDF editing tools: It has all the tools you need to edit PDF documents, from changing font type or size to increasing or decreasing opacity. I found the variety of image options particularly helpful. You can easily move them around, change the size, flip, rotate, crop, erase, and adjust them.
Annotate PDFs: With pdfFiller, you can highlight, add sticky notes, draw, redact text, and more. I noticed that when testing pdfFiller, all the annotation tools are highly customizable.
Organize PDFs: You can rearrange or delete pages with a few clicks. On the left side, just click the three dots to delete, add, duplicate, or move pages around.
PDF forms and signatures: Using pdfFiller, you can create and fill forms easily. As for the electronic signatures, this PDF editor provides a robust feature set thanks to its enterprise-grade eSignature solution that offers SOC 2 Type II & ISO 27001 certifications for trust and legal validity. You can draw, upload, and capture your signatures with your webcam. Plus, you can add your signatures via QR code, text, and email.
Convert PDFs: With this PDF editor, you can convert PDF files into JPEG, Excel, PPT, and Word documents. Nevertheless, it works both ways, so you can convert these formats to portable document format.
Password protection: You can protect your sensitive documents with passwords to restrict access.
Document management: Utilizing pdfFiller, you can create custom labels and folders for yourself or your team to organize and search your PDF documents easily. Furthermore, it has an extensive document library with numerous customizable government, legal, and business forms. Lastly, you can create reusable templates to prepare repetitive documents faster.
Team collaboration tools: pdfFiller provides shared workspaces, centralized user controls, role-based access, and audit trails to help teams collaborate on documents. Also, you can share and export PDFs in various ways, including link and email.
AI tools: pdfFiller’s AI features are designed to automate and streamline document workflows, including chatting with PDFs, summarization, translation, AI-powered document generation, and so on.
Explore our Apps directory
A curated directory of software tools we’ve independently reviewed, with links to full reviews, comparisons, and category guides.
Paid plans
Although pdfFiller does not have a free version, it has a 30-day free trial, so you can test it for yourself. As for the pricing plans, you can choose from 3+2 paid subscription options.
With the Basic Plan, you can edit, fill, draw, and rearrange pages, as well as convert your PDF documents into Word files, and get customer support within a day. It is $8 per month with annual billing or $20 per month with monthly billing.
If choosing the Plus Plan, it is $30 month-to-month or $12 per month with an annual commitment. It offers some advanced features like smart document tags and folders, password protection, and allows you to create reusable templates and add basic fillable fields.
pdfFiller’s Premium Plan is $40 monthly or $15 per month with an annual billing for more advanced features. With this plan, you can sign documents, access the US legal forms library, use custom branding on your documents, and more.
Finally, pdfFiller offers two business plans, starting with a minimum of 10 users.
Pros and cons of pdfFiller
These are the pros and cons I think you should know about.
pdfFiller’s pros
pdfFiller’s cons
🔎Read my full review: pdfFiller Review 2026: Here is what surprised me
Smallpdf
Smallpdf is an online PDF software with numerous tools to convert, compress, and edit PDF files for free.
Bottom line
Teams & individuals who need a versatile online PDF editor
Users who need a desktop PDF editor
You can use it inside your Google Workspace and Dropbox
Does not support too many PDF reading functions
If you need a simple and online PDF editor, this one is for you. Smallpdf is an online PDF software with numerous tools to convert, compress, and edit PDF files for free.
What makes Smallpdf special compared to other PDF editors is its Chrome extension, which lets you use its tools when you open a PDF in your browser. Furthermore, you can access its tools inside your Google Workspace and Dropbox apps.
Testing Smallpdf in everyday use
During my testing, I used Smallpdf’s online PDF editor. I found it really simple to use thanks to its clean and intuitive interface.
For me, the most unique feature was its Chrome extension that lets you use its tools when you open a PDF in your browser. This way, you can compress, sign, merge, convert, and summarize PDF files with SmallPDF’s AI feature without leaving your Google Workspace.
Overall, I had an absolutely positive experience with Smallpdf, and it is the best PDF editor software for online editing.
Who gets the most value from Smallpdf
When Smallpdf might not work for you
Key Features
PDF reader: With this online PDF editor, you can easily read your PDF documents and zoom in and out. Additionally, it allows you to select whether the page should fit the height or the width.
PDF editing: Smallpdf adopted drag-and-drop functions for document editing. You can add and edit existing text boxes, and it lets you use a different font type for the text, adjust the size, and change the color and alignment. Apart from adding new text boxes, you can insert image files and move them, and or change their size and opacity level if you wish.
Annotate PDFs: Smallpdf offers essential tools for annotating PDFs, so you can add text, drawings, shapes, and highlights.
Organize PDFs: With this powerful PDF editor, you can merge, rotate, delete, extract, and split documents. I especially found it valuable that Smallpdf makes it easy to merge PDF files.
PDF forms and signatures: Smallpdf offers some online tools to fill out forms and sign PDFs with electronic signatures. You can either draw, type, or upload the signature you want to use to sign PDFs.
Convert PDFs: This PDF software has excellent format conversion features. You can convert PDFs into Excel, images, PowerPoint, and Word files. It works in reverse, so you can convert supported file formats into PDF documents.
Optical character recognition: With Smallpdf, you can convert scanned images and documents into editable and searchable text. Based on my experience, it has decent OCR functionality and converts scanned files to an editable format with high accuracy.
Password protection: You can add passwords to sensitive PDF documents to ensure that only those who have the password can access them.
AI tools: Smallpdf offers powerful AI features, including chat, summarization, and translation for your PDF documents. Also, it has a feature that generates questions from the PDF you uploaded.
Cost breakdown
With the free version, you can access all the basic tools for document management. It covers compression, PDF conversion tools, passwords, a PDF editor, and e-signature features. Nevertheless, the Free Plan has a daily download limit for these features.
The Pro Plan is excellent for professionals who need unlimited downloads and access to all the Pro features. The Pro version of Smallpdf starts at $10 per month when billed annually. Alternatively, if you want to pay monthly, you can use its monthly plan for $15.
With the 7-day free trial, you can test Smallpdf’s Pro features for yourself before buying. The Pro Plan includes all the features of the free version without limits, plus access to additional advanced features.
SmallPDF has a dedicated plan for teams. The Pro for Teams Plan ($8/month per seat) is perfect if you and your team need access to advanced features and faster support, and want to save a bit more compared to individual subscriptions.
Pros and cons of Smallpdf
Here are the features that stood out most positively in Smallpdf, along with the limitations you should know about.
Smallpdf’s pros
Smallpdf’s cons
🔎Read my full review: Smallpdf Review 2026 | The Top Lightweight PDF Tool
PDFgear
PDFgear is currently one of the best completely free PDF editors on the market. It offers strong editing, annotation, conversion, OCR, and AI tools without any subscription cost
Bottom line
If you need a completely free PDF editor with reliable core tools
User seeking advanced editing controls or more robust security/privacy options
100% free
Concerns about privacy
PDFgear is a very intuitive app and a completely free PDF editor. You can read, edit, convert, merge, and sign PDF files across your devices with PDFgear.
While this is a free PDF editor, it offers many valuable features, especially for individuals.
My hands-on experience with PDFgear
Straight to the point: PDFgear is currently the best free PDF editor. It offers solid editing, annotation, AI, and conversion features for free, while these features are normally included in paid plans.
During my PDFgear review, I experienced smooth performance, and especially enjoyed using the PDFgear Copilot feature that works like a personal assistant.
As for drawbacks, I would appreciate more powerful editing features or password protection. Furthermore, there is still debate about PDFgear’s security, which poses a potential privacy risk (more information on the debate in the full review).
While I think it’s a safe PDF editor based on my experience, since I used it numerous times in the past three years, there is a data risk, particularly if you use it in your business.
Who should use PDFgear
Who should NOT use PDFgear
Key Features
PDF reader: PDFgear offers single and double-page view options, and it also has an auto-scroll tool, which can be useful when reading PDF files.
PDF editing tools: This PDF tool has all the essential features you might need to work with PDFs. You can edit text, adjust fonts, color, and size, and make it bold or italic. Although it does not have as many editing tools as other PDF editors, it includes some useful tools to edit PDF documents.
Annotate PDFs: With PDFgear, you can highlight, underline, and strike through text. It’s also great that you can highlight areas of your pages. Besides these options, you can add notes, shapes, and text boxes.
Organize PDFs: You can extract, delete, insert, and rotate pages, and if you want to move them, just drag and drop them. Organizing your PDF pages is super easy.
PDF forms and signatures: It only has the basic features to create and fill forms. However, you can create your e-signatures and sign PDFs with this PDF editor.
Convert PDFs: You can convert PDF files into many other formats, such as Word documents or pictures, and vice versa.
Optical character recognition: You can find the OCR tool on the homepage to extract text information from images.
Password protection: You can control who can open the PDF file. Nevertheless, there is no option to restrict the editing or printing of the PDF files.
AI tools: When opening up the AI co-pilot, you will get some sample prompts you can use to interact with your PDFs. It is also valuable that you can not just chat but also add commands to AI, for example, protect the PDF with a password or convert the PDF into another format.
Pricing
PDFgear is a completely free PDF editor. You might wonder how it could be free.
Well, the business is currently in a stage where it is focusing on growth and acquiring users. So, they will introduce some advanced features in the future and offer paid plans for that. But for now, it is a completely free online PDF editor with a desktop version.
Pros and cons of PDFgear
To wrap up my experience, these are the biggest wins and compromises of switching away from Adobe Acrobat to PDFgear
PDFgear’s pros
PDFgear’s cons
🔎Read my full review: My Honest PDFgear Review 2026 | What They Don’t Tell You
PDF Expert
PDF Expert is a PDF editor for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users. It offers all the tools you need to manage your PDF files, from annotation tools to signing PDFs.
Bottom line
Individuals who need an intuitive and fast PDF editor for Mac
For those who need need a PDF editor for more platforms
Smooth PDF reading
Supports only Mac
PDF Expert is a lightweight PDF editor for Mac and iOS devices. It is fast, easy to use, and has all the features you need to edit PDF files smoothly.
What I learned using PDF Expert over time
PDF Expert is a straightforward, fast, and reliable PDF editor for Apple devices. I mostly used its Mac version, and I was 100% satisfied with what I saw. While it offers numerous tools for your PDF documents, I did not feel that it was overwhelming.
Compared to Adobe Acrobat Pro, it’s not only substantially cheaper, but also feels that it has more accessible PDF editing features, and offers a much better experience performance-wise. That said, I did not have to wait long when opening large PDF documents; there were no crashes, and so on.
Additionally, PDF Expert has an intuitive, user-friendly interface that is often simpler than Adobe Acrobat’s more complex design. For me, these are the most crucial aspects when ranking PDF editors.
So, if you are considering whether to choose PDF Expert or Adobe Acrobat Pro, my obvious answer is PDF Expert, especially if you work within the Apple ecosystem. It is ideal for individuals and small businesses.
Nevertheless, if you need a PDF editor for mid-to-large-sized businesses, PDF Expert will likely be limited in terms of features. For enterprise use, I found Tungsten Power PDF and Nitro to be a more suitable choice.
Ideal users for PDF Expert
When PDF Expert might not work for you
Key Features
PDF reader: You can use a one-page or two-page layout. Also, you have the option to view two pages vertically next to each other or horizontally after each other. PDF Expert offers three themes when viewing your PDF documents. It allows you to choose day, night, or sepia mode to reach maximum eye comfort.
PDF editing tools: PDF Expert is a simple tool for PDF editing. You can easily add, replace, and resize images and text boxes in your PDFs. I loved that you can easily insert links in the PDF document that point to external websites or to other pages in the document.
Annotate PDFs: You can highlight text, comment, draw, and add stickers and shapes. It is super cool that you can leave audio comments in the PDFs.
Organize PDFs: It is super easy to rotate, add, reorder, and remove pages from your PDFs. With a few clicks, you can combine multiple PDFs into one or split a PDF into multiple documents.
PDF forms and signatures: With PDF Expert, you can easily fill out PDF forms. You can add text boxes, number fields, checkboxes, and places for signatures. To use the signing tool, just type your name, and PDF Expert will transform it into a handwriting format.
Convert PDFs: This PDF editor supports conversion to and from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPG, PNG, and more.
Optical character recognition: PDF Expert has a built-in OCR, so it recognizes the font type and seamlessly inserts the new text in the same format.
Password protection: You can set passwords to your PDF files in a quite straightforward way.
AI tools: It has an AI assistant to generate summaries and list the main points. This helps to digest PDF files faster.
Cost vs value
PDF Expert offers two paid plans.
You can get a lifetime subscription for a one-time fee of $139.99. While it includes almost all the features except the PDF Co-pilot, you have to pay for the updates, and you will not have access to the iPhone and iPad versions.
The annual subscription is $79.99 and includes the updates, iPhone and iPad versions, and the PDF Co-pilot.
All in all, PDF Expert is way cheaper than Adobe Acrobat and an affordable PDF solution on the market.
Pros and cons of PDF Expert
To wrap up my experience, these are the biggest wins and compromises.
PDFgear’s pros
PDFgear’s cons
🔎Read my full review: PDF Expert Review 2026 | Is it REALLY the best for Mac Users?
ONLYOFFICE
ONLYOFFICE is an open-sourced office suite offering a full range of tools to create, edit, and collaborate on text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDF files.
Bottom line
Businesses needing a secure and collaborative platform for PDF editing
If you use MS Office
Security
Limited PDF editing and reading features
ONLYOFFICE is an open-sourced office suite offering a full range of tools to create, edit, and collaborate on text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDF files. ONLYOFFICE Docs has powerful editing tools for all kinds of documents.
How ONLYOFFICE performed in my daily workflow
During my ONLYOFFICE PDF editor review, I used the ONLYOFFICE desktop app for my PDF files and forms. Just out of curiosity, I also took a look at the spreadsheet, document, and presentation editors.
They work quite similarly to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and offer a smooth experience. Overall, my feeling was that ONLYOFFICE is one of the best alternatives to Microsoft Office in terms of document compatibility and user interface.
Its PDF editor had a smooth experience as well. I did not experience any learning curve, and the whole process was very intuitive. I especially enjoyed trying some plugins and the way I can customize my tool stack for PDF documents.
During my ONLYOFFICE PDF editor review, I did not experience any performance issues compared to Adobe Acrobat.
Ultimately, I had a smooth and positive experience with ONLYOFFICE PDF editor. It offers not only a PDF editing solution but a wide array of tools for your documents, presentations, and spreadsheets.
Who should use ONLYOFFICE
Who should NOT use ONLYOFFICE
Key features
PDF reader: ONLYOFFICE has some essential PDF reader tools as well. On the right button of the page or the view option, you can zoom and choose from more themes. For instance, you can use light or dark contrast themes when reading your PDF documents. Personally, I really enjoyed the fact that the ONLYOFFICE PDF editor offers numerous themes for reading your PDFs.
PDF editing tools: You can edit existing text, use a different font type for the text, adjust the size, and change the margins of a content block and paragraph alignment and spacing. ONLYOFFICE PDF editor uses a drag-and-drop system when editing text in your PDF files. So, when you select a text box, you can not only edit it but also move around on the pages.
Annotate PDFs: With ONLYOFFICE PDF editor, you can access the PDF annotation tools if you click on the Comment tab. Here, you will find the option to add comments, highlight text, apply strikethrough, or access the drawing tools.
Organize PDFs: If you hit the Page Thumbnails button on the left, you can easily reorganize your pages with the ONLYOFFICE PDF editor. You only need to drag-and-drop the thumbnail of the page, and you can change the order.
PDF forms and signatures: ONLYOFFICE PDF editor has all the tools to create customizable forms. You can insert text boxes, dropdown lists, checkboxes, images, signature fields, etc.
Convert PDFs: With ONLYOFFICE online PDF converter, you can convert your PDF documents into +50 file formats.
Optical character recognition: By downloading an OCR plugin using ONLYOFFICE plugin market, you can use its OCR tools easily.
Password protection: If you click on the file, you can easily add passwords to your PDF files and restrict access. Just a side note here: you can not recover the password for your PDF file, so make sure you keep it in a safe place that you will not forget about.
AI tools: You can access ONLYOFFICE’s AI assistant among the plugins, and it will perform tasks in your PDFs.
Pricing
You can use ONLYOFFICE in two ways.
First, you can download the desktop app (i.e., ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors), and after you install it, you can use it for free.
Second, you can create a free ONLYOFFICE DocSpace account and work on PDFs and other office files. DocSpace also offers a paid plan with some benefits and more storage space. It starts at $20 per admin monthly.
Pros and cons of ONLYOFFICE
After reviewing ONLYOFFICE, I found the pros and cons you should know about this software.
ONLYOFFICE PDF editor’s pros
ONLYOFFICE PDF editor’s cons
🔎Read my full review: ONLYOFFICE PDF Editor Review | An Exciting Option (2026)
Foxit
Foxit offers many features, such as text editing, image manipulation, page organization, and annotation tools. It works on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Online as well.
Bottom line
Advanced PDF editing
Casual or occasional users
Wide range of PDF editing features
Some features locked behind higher tiers
Foxit is a popular PDF editor that performed relatively well during our tests. What makes it stand out from other options is its advanced feature set for editing PDF documents.
My real-world experience with Foxit PDF Editor
Foxit offers many of the same features as Adobe Pro, but at a lower price. Another difference I noticed is that Foxit is a fast PDF reader. Even when I opened large files, I did not have any issues with loading time.
Like some of the other PDF editors I have tested, Foxit adopted a drag-and-drop feature for editing text and images. It makes it easy to edit or create PDFs quickly and smoothly.
I also enjoyed using its annotation tools. It is super easy to add annotations, and it offers a variety of annotation tools to choose from.
Overall, I had a positive experience with Foxit. Compared to other PDF editors on the market, I think it is one of the most complete solutions, though I wouldn’t call it cheap.
Who gets the most value from Foxit
When Foxit might not work for you
Key features
PDF reader: You can use the read mode, change to night view if you want, and change between numerous view options.
PDF editing tools: Foxit uses the smoothest drag-and-drop function in the PDF editor space when editing PDF documents. You can add images, text, or links and edit the existing ones. It allows the use of different font types for the text, adjusting the size, and changing the margins of a content block and paragraph alignment and spacing.
Annotate PDFs: You can choose from numerous options when it comes to highlighting text, adding callouts, or notes. Whenever you add one of these items, you can customize it further using the window that comes up on the right.
Organize PDFs: You can reorder, delete, insert pages, swap, flatten, crop, extract, and split them with a few clicks.
PDF forms and signatures: It has easy-to-use tools to create or fill out forms within a PDF document and add your e-signatures.
Convert PDFs: With Foxit, you can convert PDFs into many file formats, such as Microsoft Office formats or image files.
Optical character recognition: Foxit has super OCR tools, so you can easily edit scanned documents.
Password protection: With a few clicks, you can add passwords to your PDFs and restrict access.
AI tools: You can ask questions about the PDFs or ask the AI assistant to summarize the document.
Available plans
Using Foxit’s free version, you can view and read your PDFs and utilize its PDF reader tools. Besides the free version, Foxit offers two plans.
The PDF editor includes the essential features to edit PDF files for $129.99. By choosing this plan, you can create documents, edit them, fill out forms, add security, and more.
Nevertheless, if you need the eSign, smart redact features, and want to use Foxit on your mobile, you must go with the PDF Editor+. You can get this plan for $172.79 per year and access all the advanced features of Foxit.
Lastly, if you want to add an AI Assistant, which includes 2000 credits per month, that is an extra $49.99/year.
Related article:
Pros and Cons of Foxit PDF Editor
Here’s a quick breakdown of what Foxit does really well and where it could improve.
Foxit’s pros
Foxit’s cons
🔎Read my full review: My Honest Foxit Review After Trying +30 PDF Editors (2026)
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat allows you to create, view, manipulate, print, and manage PDF files. It supports Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS devices.
bottom line
A reliable PDF editor for enterprises
Users looking for a budget-friendly solution
Solid feature set
The most expensive PDF editor
I think we all know or have used Adobe Acrobat in our lives. It is a PDF editor developed by Adobe Systems. Adobe Acrobat allows you to create, view, manipulate, print, and manage PDF files.
It is still a reliable option for editing PDFs, but it comes at a premium price.
What it’s like to use Adobe Acrobat long-term
Adobe Acrobat has massive PDF editing features. However, they are not experimental. I found numerous PDF editors with PDF editing features that are as advanced or more advanced than those in Adobe Acrobat. At the same time, the Adobe Pro License is way more pricier than others on the market.
And honestly, I don’t feel it is justified. When testing UPDF or EaseUS PDF Editor, I could do the same PDF editing as with Adobe Acrobat’s paid plans, and still, I can buy these software’s license for a fraction of Adobe Acrobat Pro’s price.
Adobe Acrobat is still a solid choice for enterprises thanks to its high security. Nonetheless, for individuals, professionals, or small- and mid-sized businesses, it is extremely overpriced.
Best use cases for Adobe Acrobat
When to consider alternatives to Adobe Acrobat
Key Features
PDF reader: Adobe Acrobat offers single-page and two-page views, and you can also enable scrolling when reading PDFs.
PDF editing tools: It has solid tools for editing your PDFs. It has a good text editing feature, but you can edit images as well.
Annotate PDFs: Adobe Acrobat has some useful annotating features like highlighting, underlining, or copying text. It allows you to add comments, text fields, sticky notes, or shapes.
Organize PDFs: Adobe Acrobat allows you to insert, replace, extract, rotate, split, and remove pages. While this is not an advanced PDF functionality, it is still nice that you can organize your PDFs quickly.
PDF forms and signatures: It provides quite decent options for creating PDF forms. Similarly to the PDF editors, you can sign PDFs with Adobe as well.
Convert PDFs: You can convert your PDF documents into different file formats, including Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.
Optical character recognition: Adobe Acrobat has an OCR tool as well. When I tried it, it worked quite well.
Password protection: With Adobe Acrobat, you can protect your PDF files with passwords. It is also great to limit access to certain features like printing or editing.
AI tools: They are useful for getting quick answers about your PDFs, summarizing content, and digesting documents faster. The summary feature works great; Adobe Acrobat creates a summary with one click that pulls key points from your document. It also allows you to chat with multiple documents, so you can find crucial information faster. However, I have experienced these AI assistant features being limited.
Free and paid plans
Adobe Acrobat has three plans, and you can add the AI Assistant feature for $4.99 per month. Also, the prices are different for individuals, teams, and students & teachers. As the prices vary based on whether you buy it as an individual or a team member, let’s focus on the features included in the plans.
The free plan is called Adobe Reader. This plan lets you view, print, share, and add comments to your PDF files. Essentially, it has the most basic features to read PDF files.
The Acrobat Standard also includes PDF editor features, so you can edit text and images. This plan has all the basic and some advanced features to effectively edit PDFs. It costs$155.88/year/user for individuals and $179.88/year/license for businesses.
With Acrobat Pro, you can send bulk e-signature requests, turn scanned documents into editable, searchable PDFs, compare two versions, and add branding. You can get the Acrobat Pro for $239.88/year if you purchase it as an individual. The business license is$287.88/year per license for businesses. If you are a student or a teacher, you can get discounts on the Acrobat Pro plan.
The yearly fee for the AI assistant is $59.88 per user, and it is the same for individuals and businesses.
Finally, Adobe released its Acrobat Studio plan for $299.88/year, which covers all features, including the AI assistant and Adobe Express Premium.
When taking a look at the paid plans of Adobe Acrobat, you will quickly realize that the price is much higher than that of some of its competitors.
Related readings:
- The 7 Best Adobe Acrobat Alternatives: 30+ PDF Editors Tested
- Adobe Acrobat Vs Foxit: I Tried Both and Found The BEST (2026)
- Adobe Acrobat Vs Nitro: A Honest Comparison (2026)
- I Tested +30 PDF editors for Windows | Here Are The 8 Best
Pros and Cons of Adobe Acrobat
After my Adobe Acrobat review, I found these pros and cons you should know about this PDF editor.
Adobe Acrobat’s pros
Adobe Acrobat’s cons
🔎Read my full review: Adobe Acrobat Review: What Nobody Tells You (2026)
Summary: The best PDF editors in 2026
After my long research and continuous testing, I found these to be the best PDF editors in 2026. Although there are many options on the market, I recommend you always go through the key features, trustworthiness, and pricing before making a purchase.
Related article:
- 6 Best OCR Software For 2026 | 30+ Personally Tested Tools
- The 6 Best PDF Readers For 2026 (Only FREE Options)
I hope I was able to find the best PDF editors in 2026. As always, I will keep updating this list to ensure it reflects reality.
Looking for similar tools?
Visit our library of PDF editors to explore other apps we’ve reviewed in this space and how they compare.
Why you can trust our reviews
At thebusinessdive.com, our team tests, reviews, and compares hundreds of productivity apps every year — from project management tools to note-taking apps. We dive deep into real-world use cases to help you find the right tools that actually improve your workflow, not just add noise.
Our mission? No fluff, no shortcuts—just honest, hands-on insights from productivity pros.
Discover how we stay transparent, read our review methodology, and let us know about any tools we missed.
Frequently asked questions
Which PDF editor is best?
Based on my research, testing, and user reports, the best PDF editors are UPDF, EaseUS PDF Editor, Smallpdf, and PDFgear. It is worth noting that this always depends on your use cases as well as whether you are looking for a PDF editor for yourself or your business.
Besides the ones I highlighted in the list, there are some PDF apps you can check out, including QuillBot’s PDF Editor, WPS, and PDFelement.
Which is the best free PDF editor?
The best free software is PDFgear for PDF editing. It is a very intuitive app and a completely free PDF editor. You can read, edit, convert, reorder pages, and sign PDF files across your devices with PDFgear. It is also great that it has numerous free online tools that you can access on its homepage.
How can I edit PDF files for free?
There are numerous free online PDF editors. However, if you want a reliable option, I recommend checking PDFgear.
Is Adobe Acrobat Pro a good PDF editing software?
Adobe Acrobat Pro is considered the industry standard for PDF editing. However, compared to other PDF editing software on the market, it is very pricey, considering the value it offers.
After testing 30+ PDF editors, these are the best Adobe Acrobat Pro alternatives:
- Foxit PDF Editor: Foxit PDF Editor is a strong alternative to Adobe Acrobat Pro, offering a range of features for power users.
- PDF Expert: PDF Expert is recommended for Mac users due to its seamless integration with the Apple ecosystem.
- EaseUS PDF Editor: EaseUS PDF Editor is recognized for its affordability and essential tools for managing PDF files.
- Smallpdf: It is one of the best PDF software for online PDF editing tasks. It is a lightweight Adobe Acrobat alternative with affordable pricing.
- UPDF: With its budget-friendly pricing, it is an excellent Adobe Acrobat Pro alternative.
- Nitro PDF Pro: Nitro PDF Pro is a robust PDF editor, but it has quite expensive paid plans.
Here, you can check out my full list of best Adobe Acrobat alternatives: The 8 Best Adobe Acrobat Alternatives: 30+ PDF Editors Tested
Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Read the full privacy policy here.
Hey there! I am Aron, the founder of Thebusinessdive. I have been testing productivity apps for almost three years now. I reach 25.000 -50.000 people monthly with the mission to help you find the perfect productivity apps. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, newsletter, and social media to hear more about the best productivity tools. Let’s dive in!
I will say Thankyou for You… 5stars for this article 🙂
Finally i get .pdf Rearder and Editor iclude OCR, the best ya EaseUs Pdf.
Only 100MB ya… isn’t that very light… very. But don’t be mistaken EaseUs Pdf is very powrful, clean UI and ful features. Equal to Adobe Acrobat DC 1.3GB and more wow.
“Wow, Aron Kantor’s dedication to testing over 30 PDF tools for over 200 hours is commendable! In a world flooded with PDF editors, having a curated list of the top 9 for 2025 is invaluable. It’s reassuring to know that experts like Aron are narrowing down the best options, saving us from the overwhelming task of sifting through countless tools. Great job on the comprehensive review!”