Adobe vs Foxit vs Smallpdf: In-depth Comparison [September 2025]

PDF software is no longer just for viewing documents—it’s a vital tool with features that businesses rely on daily. Among the many options available, Adobe Acrobat and Foxit are two of the most widely used.

Choosing between Adobe Acrobat and Foxit can be challenging, especially when evaluating features against price. Do you need advanced formatting controls? Is enterprise-grade security essential for your workflows? Do you prefer a Microsoft Office-like interface? Are you already invested in the Adobe ecosystem? Does your organization handle sensitive information requiring redaction? Is budget a primary concern for your PDF solution?

This 7,000-word comparison will help you navigate these questions and determine which PDF solution best fits your specific needs.

Executive Summary: Our Recommendation

👉 Adobe Acrobat, developed by American tech giant Adobe Inc., is the industry-standard PDF powerhouse best suited for professionals who need precise control over document editing and workflows. Its comprehensive editing capabilities include extensive settings all around, advanced content manipulation tools, and granular security controls, and AI-powered features for analysis, translation, and design editing. While Acrobat excels at precision formatting and offers unparalleled feature depth, its premium pricing and steeper learning curve make it less practical for casual users or organizations with everyday PDF editing needs.

👉 Foxit PDF Editor, created by a Chinese software company based in Fuzhou, is an enterprise-focused solution with strong PDF editing controls and robust security settings. It builds on standard tools with unique features like the Link & Join Text function, which simplifies complex layout adjustments, and advanced AI features, including Smart Redact, which automatically detects and permanently removes sensitive information. While Foxit's Microsoft Office-style interface provides a familiar experience for business users, its extensive settings and advanced tools may be overwhelming for teams seeking a simpler document-handling solution.

Both Adobe Acrobat and Foxit PDF Editor introduce unnecessary complexity and cost barriers for teams that simply need efficient, reliable document handling without specialized training. Which is why we've included Smallpdf in the comparison.

👉 Smallpdf, founded in the city of Zürich in Switzerland, was built for users who value simplicity and efficiency in PDF workflows. Its exceptionally intuitive interface delivers core functionality—merging, editing, compressing, converting, protecting, and signing—with remarkable ease of use and visual clarity. Smallpdf features practical AI capabilities including unlimited document analysis, summarization, and translation in 24 languages, all while maintaining a strict privacy policy. Its widely adopted cloud integration, with over 4 million Google Workspace installations and 3 million Chrome extension downloads, ensures seamless PDF management. Combining a cloud-first approach, strong security certifications, and built-in Sign.com integration for e-signature tracking, Smallpdf is an ideal solution for SMBs and administrative teams needing streamlined document handling.

In this article, we'll compare Adobe vs Foxit vs Smallpdf across the following key areas:

• Essential Document Handling

• Usability and Learning Curve

• Accessibility Across Devices

• Security and Compliance

• AI Capabilities

• Pricing

💡 Tip: Many organizations use different PDF solutions in different departments to balance features and costs: using Smallpdf for everyday tasks, Adobe for advanced needs, and Foxit for handling sensitive documents. This hybrid approach makes sure every department has the right tools while optimizing budgets.

For a quick overview, check the comparison table below to learn about the strengths and limitations of each solution.

Comparison Summary: Adobe Acrobat vs Foxit vs Smallpdf

What is Adobe Acrobat?

"The professional's PDF powerhouse" 🏛

Adobe's flagship PDF solution delivers comprehensive document editing capabilities with exceptional depth and precision. The platform excels with rich formatting options including extensive font controls, alignment tools, and advanced content manipulation. Its sophisticated features extend beyond basic editing to include conversion of PDF into a wide selection of formats, detailed permission controls for security, advanced AI capabilities, and e-signature workflows with multiple authentication options.

Adobe Acrobat is the ideal solution for power users, design professionals, and users who need precise control over document appearance and workflows. While its premium pricing and steeper learning curve may deter casual users, organizations with complex document needs—particularly those already invested in the Adobe ecosystem—may find that Acrobat's unparalleled feature depth justifies the investment.

What is Foxit PDF Editor?

"Enterprise-grade PDF suite" 🔒

Foxit delivers robust document handling capabilities, matching advanced functionality with high security standards. Some of its unique features include Link & Join Text function for editing complex layouts, powerful AI capabilities like Smart Redact that automatically identifies and removes sensitive information, and a comprehensive desktop version, suited for security-conscious environments. Foxit's Microsoft Office-style interface creates a familiar experience for business users, providing powerful controls without overwhelming complexity. 

Foxit PDF Editor is particularly well-suited for organizations in regulated industries and security-sensitive sectors like banking and finance. Foxit's strategic focus on the desktop capabilities and high security needs has positioned it as the preferred choice for companies that need to keep sensitive documents within controlled networks while balancing functionality with reasonable business pricing.

What is Smallpdf?

"Simply smarter PDF handling" 🚀

Smallpdf has a slogan on its homepage: ‘We make PDF easy’."

Smallpdf excels with its exceptionally intuitive interface and focused approach to document handling. The platform delivers core PDF functionality—merging, editing, compressing, converting, protecting, and signing—with remarkable ease of use and visual clarity. Its AI-powered tools cover PDF chat, summarization, and translation, and unlike the competitors, these features come with unlimited use in paid plans, removing limits that can slow down workflows. Overall, each tool features a straightforward progression from one step to the next, with contextual suggestions that help users discover related features organically. Smallpdf's cloud-first approach enables seamless integration with popular services like Google Drive and Dropbox, with impressive adoption statistics, including over 4 million Google Workspace installations and 3 million Chrome extension downloads.

Smallpdf is ideally suited for small-to-medium businesses, administrative departments, and general staff members who need efficient document processing without specialized training. By focusing on delivering exceptional user experience for the most commonly used PDF functions, Smallpdf has positioned itself as the perfect choice for those seeking efficiency, ease of use, and affordability.

Adobe Acrobat vs Foxit vs Smallpdf: Essential Document Handling

Adobe Acrobat and Foxit offer advanced features with complex settings and limited functionality across plans, while Smallpdf provides all the essentials across all plans with a focus on simplicity.

Essential document handling includes the main PDF operations most users need daily: merging files, editing content, compressing documents, converting between formats, and managing e-signatures. These basic features impact how efficiently you work and are the most important part of any PDF solution.

In this article, we've covered only the most commonly used features, but each of the three tools offers a wide range of free and paid options, as shown in the table below.

Merging and Organizing PDFs: Smallpdf offers the easiest merging experience with visual organization, Adobe Acrobat provides the most advanced options but is more complex, while Foxit delivers a simple, no-frills approach.

Smallpdf simplifies merging PDFs with a clean, visual approach. The merge tool has a navigation bar for adding multiple files, rotating pages, and viewing individual pages within each uploaded file. Smallpdf is unique because of its color-coded system for tracking documents, which makes it very easy to change and track the order they'll appear in once combined. You can also remove selected pages you don’t want in the final merged file.

Smallpdf's Merge PDF tool features an intuitive navigation bar that guides users through the process of merging PDF files, organizing pages, and accessing additional functionalities.

Foxit’s Combine Files feature offers granular settings.

Adobe Acrobat’s Combine files feature allows you to select exact pages from the documents you want to combine.

PDF Editing Capabilities: Adobe Acrobat provides the most complete editing tools with many formatting options, Foxit has strong editing tools with a unique Link & Join feature, while Smallpdf offers standard editing tools that meet most users' needs.

Adobe Acrobat's editing tools represent the gold standard for comprehensive PDF modification. The text editing screen lets you control fonts, sizes, colors, and alignment exactly. And you can even edit images. With the most recent Adobe Express integration, you can go further by editing the full design of your PDF, including themes, styles, and visual elements.

Text formatting panel displays font settings, alignment options, and numerical input fields, alongside a vertical toolbar and document content.

Foxit PDF Editor offers similarly extensive text editing and annotating tools as Acrobat, though with a more limited font selection. It also allows image editing, but mainly through basic settings rather than advanced visual enhancements. Its standout feature, Link & Join Text, lets users connect or split text blocks as needed—particularly useful for editing multi-column documents or complex layouts.

Foxit’s text formatting panel displays font settings, alignment options, and numerical input fields, alongside a vertical toolbar and document content.

Smallpdf’s text editing tool allows users to directly modify text, change fonts, and apply formatting to their documents.

Annotate documents in Smallpdf with features for highlighting, drawing, adding text, and inserting shapes.

Compression Tools: Smallpdf eases compression with clear options and instant visual feedback, showing the exact size and percentage reduced, while Adobe and Foxit offer detailed controls but don’t display the file size reduction upfront.

File compression with Smallpdf is effortless. The platform offers two distinct compression options: Basic (medium file size with standard resolution) and Strong (smaller file size with lower resolution), both optimized to maintain the highest possible document quality. Users get instant visual feedback—after compression, they can see exactly how much the file size has been reduced in terms of kB and percentage. The process is smooth, letting users download the compressed file, save it to cloud storage, export it in different formats, or share it through many channels.

Users experience fast and efficient PDF compression with Smallpdf’s Compress tool.

Adobe Acrobat offers extensive setting for compressing files.

Format Conversion Tools: Smallpdf covers essential formats with ease, while Adobe and Foxit support more formats but come with more complex settings.

Smallpdf document conversion is straightforward, with tools easily accessible from the main toolbar. The platform allows you to turn PDFs into other formats, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and image files, and you can also convert all these formats into PDFs. The settings let you convert selectable text only or turn text in scans and images into an editable format as well. Your documents retain their structure and appearance during conversion.

Smallpdf PDF Converter tool offers a user-friendly interface with simple drag-and-drop functionality for easy conversion.

Adobe Acrobat offers various settings for exporting PDFs in different formats.

E-Signing and Requesting: Smallpdf provides all essential e-signing and request features with tracking, while Adobe Acrobat and Foxit offer more complex options with advanced authentication.

Adobe Acrobat offers a free Fill&Sign feature, allowing you to fill in a form and sign using a hand drawn, text, or image-based signature. For e-signature requests there’s a separate feature, where you can set a signing order, collect signatures in bulk, and even request payments. The system supports multiple file types and offers security options like email, password, knowledge-based authentication, and phone verification. Additional controls include deadlines, automated reminders, and language settings for enterprise users.

Adobe Acrobat's agreement interface offers message customization, file management, security options, signature preferences, and language settings for document signing workflows.

Sign.com's document status page allows users to monitor signature progress, view activity, track signees, and take action on documents.

Foxit’s eSignature tool offers extensive security features like authentication and in-person signing.

Adobe Acrobat vs Foxit vs Smallpdf: Usability and Learning Curve

Smallpdf features a simple, easy-to-use interface, Foxit offers a familiar design with moderate complexity, and Adobe Acrobat has the most complex interface with the steepest learning curve.

How easy a tool is to use and learn greatly affects productivity, especially for teams with different tech skills. A PDF tool's design, menu system, and approach to everyday tasks can mean the difference between working fast and wasting time.

User Interface Design and Organization: Smallpdf offers an intuitive design made for everyone, Foxit’s interface will be familiar to Microsoft Office users, while Acrobat follows the Adobe suite interface design, suitable for tech-savvy professionals.

Smallpdf follows the "less is more" philosophy with a very clean, focused interface that puts ease of use first. When users log into Smallpdf, they see a home page that shows the most popular PDF tools along with a big upload button for adding documents. The left sidebar shows the main features in a clear, logical order: Compress, Convert, Organize, Edit, Sign, AI PDF, More, and Documents. This simple layout helps users quickly find the tool they need without searching through complex menus or ribbons.

Smallpdf's main dashboard highlights popular PDF tools like compress, convert, and edit, along with a sidebar for navigation and a header for account management.

Foxit PDF Editor takes a middle path for its design, making features easy to access while having some complexity. The menu bars at the top are organized like in Microsoft Office, with tabs for main features and toolbars below for each chosen feature. A new Format toolbar opens when you try to edit any of the added elements. This familiar layout helps users who know Office tools to quickly learn Foxit.

Foxit PDF Editor shows the user interface with vertical navigation panel on the left and horizontal toolbars at the top.

Learning Resources and Support: Smallpdf's straightforward design means you need less help, Foxit has strong documentation with built-in guidance, while Adobe offers the most thorough learning materials because it has so many complex features.

Smallpdf's approach to help materials shows its focus on simplicity and ease of use. The program is built to reduce the need for long manuals or training by making interfaces user-friendly and workflows simple to follow.

For users who need help, Smallpdf offers guidance with clear tool descriptions, smart tips, and helpful messages across the interface. You can also find some very useful guides on the blog. The customer support mostly handles account issues rather than questions about using the program, which shows the design is so clear that users rarely need help with the features.

Smallpdf presents helpful smart tips across the platform.

Foxit’s text formatting panel displays font settings, alignment options, and numerical input fields, alongside a vertical toolbar and document content.

Adobe Acrobat has a knowledge hub built into the software.

Adobe Acrobat vs Foxit vs Smallpdf: Accessibility Across Devices

All three tools offer high accessibility across devices; however, Smallpdf shines with its cloud integration adoption rates, Acrobat with its full-featured mobile app, and Foxit with its enterprise-level integrations.

Accessibility in PDF software refers to how easily users can access, share, and work with documents across desktop, web, and mobile platforms. This includes integrations for easy file access, mobile capabilities for on-the-go productivity, and flexibility in working both online and offline.

Mobile Apps: Smallpdf offers streamlined mobile capabilities focusing on key tasks, Adobe provides full mobile functionality with advanced AI features, and Foxit delivers a feature-rich mobile experience with many tools and templates.

All three tools provide web, desktop, and mobile versions, ensuring flexibility across devices. The desktop versions allow offline functionality, making it possible to work without an internet connection. Since we've covered web and desktop functionalities throughout this article, this section focuses on mobile.

Smallpdf's mobile app has a clean design, including the most important PDF tools for use away from your desk: compress, merge, organize, delete, rotate, convert, edit, and sign. A top feature of the Smallpdf mobile app is its built-in document scanning, which helps users take pictures of paper documents and make them into PDFs right away. This function is particularly valuable in industries and regions where paper documents are still common.

Integrations: Smallpdf leads with excellent cloud service integration and high adoption rates, Adobe provides solid business-focused connection options, and Foxit offers enterprise-level system integration.

Smallpdf's integration is a key part of how people use it. The platform connects easily to popular cloud services like Google Drive and Dropbox so users can access and save files directly without downloading and re-uploading.

What sets Smallpdf's cloud integration apart is its high adoption rates. Smallpdf has over 4 million installations on Google Workspace, with more than half of those installed by administrators for entire organizations. The platform's Chrome extension, with 3 million downloads, further improves cloud accessibility by letting users work with PDFs directly in the browser.

Adobe Acrobat gives solid cloud integration designed for business needs. The platform connects with major cloud storage services, including Microsoft 365, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box, enabling document access across company networks. It also offers a Chrome and Edge extension.

Foxit provides good cloud integration with major platforms, presenting its abilities as part of a bigger business system ecosystem. The software connects with Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box to help document workflows. Additionally, it provides Salesforce, Sharepoint, and Zapier integrations. 

Foxit prioritizes full business system integration, making it ideal for organizations needing PDF tools within automated workflows or content management systems.

Verdict: Smallpdf is the best for simple, streamlined PDF tasks with strong cloud integration, ideal for individuals, small businesses, and casual users. Adobe Acrobat balances advanced mobile features, AI tools, and business-friendly cloud connectivity, making it perfect for professionals, teams, and businesses needing powerful cross-device collaboration. Foxit PDF Editor excels in enterprise integration with a feature-rich mobile app, suited for enterprises and power users who require extensive customization, security, and workflow automation.

Adobe Acrobat vs Foxit vs Smallpdf: Security and Compliance

Adobe Acrobat provides the most advanced security tools with detailed permissions and encryption, Foxit excels in AI-powered redaction and business security, and Smallpdf offers essential protection with a user-friendly approach.

Security and compliance are key factors when picking a PDF solution, especially for companies dealing with private information. Good document encryption, protection tools, and redaction features can be the difference between safe data and expensive leaks.

Encryption and Data Protection: Smallpdf focuses on clear security certifications and global privacy rules, while Adobe and Foxit take it a step further with Protected View features.

Smallpdf has a direct, open way of protecting data, clearly showing its security strengths. The service uses safe 128-bit AES encryption to keep data secure always, from when a file is sent to the servers until it's received by users.

What makes Smallpdf's security special is its official certifications and how it follows worldwide rules. The software has ISO/IEC 27001 certification, which means it follows strong information security practices. Smallpdf also follows big privacy rules like GDPR, CCPA, and nFADP.

Adobe Acrobat has complete security tools with a focus on strong protection methods. The software uses 256-bit AES encryption, giving standard protection for private document information.

One of Adobe's special security tools is Protected View, which opens PDFs in a limited, read-only mode that works like a safe testing area. This protection stops harmful files from hurting the user's computer, a key safety measure when opening files from sources you don't know.

Foxit PDF Editor aims at business security, with many protection features for companies that care about security. Foxit uses strong encryption standards, including 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), 128-bit AES, and 128-bit ARC-FOUR, which you can choose between. 

Foxit has a Protected View feature like Adobe's, making a limited space for opening possibly unsafe documents. The software's security features are especially attractive to rule-following industries and government offices. Foxit is often picked for highly sensitive departments because of its strong security tools.

Document Protection and Permissions: Adobe and Foxit have fine-tuned permission controls with thorough access management, while Smallpdf gives basic protection with key security features.

Adobe Acrobat leads in document protection and permission handling, providing very thorough control over document access and use. The software lets users enforce using certificates and lock documents with passwords, making multi-level security that fits various situations.

The permission controls in Adobe are very detailed, allowing limits on exact actions like printing, copying, editing, changing, and screen reader use. This detailed control helps companies create exact security rules based on user jobs and document privacy needs.

Adobe Acrobat's Permissions panel displays controls for document printing, editing, copying, and accessibility, with password protection and strength indicator for security settings.

Foxit offers granular permission and restriction settings.

Smallpdf’s password protection interface showcases a document preview, password input fields, and clear information about 128-bit AES encryption.

Redaction Capabilities: Foxit offers AI-powered Smart Redact for automatic redaction, Adobe has extremely thorough tools that remove even metadata, and Smallpdf provides simple redaction tools for hiding information.

Foxit PDF Editor’s redaction capabilities are completely unique thanks to its AI-powered Smart Redact feature, which automatically finds and removes private information from PDF documents. This tool greatly speeds up the redaction process, especially for many documents. However, to avoid any potential security risks, users may want to consider how their data is processed, since Smart Redact uses AI to analyze document content, and review Foxit's security measures before use.

Foxit's redaction method makes sure that private information is fully removed from the document, not just hidden from view. For big documents, Foxit's Search and Redact tool is really useful, as it allows users to find specific information like names or social security numbers and hide them all at once. You can also completely customize the redaction properties.

Foxit's Redaction Properties offer customization options including fill color, overlay text settings, and FOIA code entries for marking sensitive content.

A comparison of an Adobe Acrobat document before and after redaction, showing how marked text is converted to permanent black rectangles to protect sensitive information.

Smallpdf's Redact feature highlights the document preview with sensitive information redacted, along with page organization tools and a confirmation button.

Adobe Acrobat vs Foxit vs Smallpdf: AI Capabilities

Adobe offers the most advanced AI but at an extra cost, Foxit provides versatile features with a credit system, and Smallpdf includes unlimited AI in paid plans with fast, clear results.

AI features are changing how users work with and get value from PDF documents. These smart features can do tasks that take a lot of time like summarizing, translating, and analyzing content, which greatly boosts productivity.

Note: As awareness of AI-related privacy practices grows, we examined Adobe, Foxit, and Smallpdf’s policies on using user documents for AI training. While all three state that user documents are not used for AI training, the approaches to this policy vary. Adobe states that content isn’t used without consent, Foxit temporarily stores inputs for performance but doesn’t train AI with them, and Smallpdf maintains a strict no-AI-training policy.

AI Features Overview: Adobe offers the broadest AI toolkit, Foxit combines smart commands with voice and creative tools, and Smallpdf delivers unlimited AI access in paid plans with useful, clear results.

Adobe Acrobat’s AI Assistant offers powerful document analysis features such as chatting with PDFs, generating summaries, extracting key takeaways, and listening with multi-voice narration. It supports documents up to 100MB, 600 pages, and various formats, and analyzes up to 100 documents at once. Acrobat also introduces PDF Spaces, shared hubs where teams can gather multiple files and use AI chat to uncover insights with citations. Editing has advanced with integrated Adobe Express, which enables one-click theme changes, AI-powered text rewrites, image generation, and more. Access to AI features, however, requires an additional subscription unless you are on the top-tier Acrobat Studio plan, which includes 250 monthly credits.

Language Translation and Processing: Adobe leads with 46 languages and design-preserving results, Foxit offers 17 with full layout retention, and Smallpdf supports 24 with fast side-by-side translations for quick understanding.

Smallpdf’s AI translation supports 24 languages, giving users a broad range of options for everyday needs. It offers two modes: a summarized translation for quick understanding or a full translation for deeper reading. Translations appear in a clear side-by-side view with the original text, making it easy to follow along and compare. By focusing purely on text rather than layout, Smallpdf delivers fast, accessible, and distraction-free translations that are especially useful for quick comprehension on the go.

Adobe Acrobat vs Foxit vs Smallpdf: Pricing

Smallpdf offers the simplest, most affordable pricing with all features included, Foxit provides competitive pricing with feature distinctions, and Adobe has the most complex and expensive plans.

Pricing and licensing models have a big effect on the total cost of ownership and return on investment for PDF software. Besides the main subscription cost, organizations must think about usage limits, feature availability across tiers, and the structure of team licensing.

Smallpdf stands out with a clear, simple pricing structure, available as a monthly or yearly subscription. It offers four tiers: Free, Pro, Team, and Business. The free version gives access to all essential tools but with usage limits.