# Alternatives to Nitro PDF

Business PDF and e-sign bundle.

Nitro PDF ranks #1 of 13 in PDF tools, with an Alt Score of 91. It is proprietary, sold by subscription and available on Windows and macOS. 10 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/nitro-pdf/
Category: PDF tools

## Where Nitro PDF stands out

- **One-time purchase option** — 5 of 13 apps with a verified answer have this

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: Individuals, small teams, and enterprise/regulated organizations (e.g. real estate, healthcare, finance, government) that need to create, edit, and manage PDF documents on Windows, Mac, or iOS.
- **What you get**: A desktop, mobile, and cloud PDF suite covering creation, editing, conversion (Word/Excel/PowerPoint/image formats), page management, OCR, and document combining. It includes collaboration tools like comments and markup, security features such as password protection, encryption, and permission controls, e-signing via Nitro Sign, and AI tools for summarization, data extraction, fillable-form creation, and automated sensitive-data redaction.
- **How it works**: Users open or scan a PDF in the desktop, mobile, or web app, make edits and annotations, then apply security or signature requests and export or share the finished file, all within the same application.

## Profile

- **License**: Proprietary (verified 2026-07-11)
- **Pricing model**: Subscription (verified 2026-07-11)
- **Starts at**: ?
- **Platforms**: Windows, macOS
- **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-11)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [Foxit PDF Editor](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/foxit-pdf-editor.md) | 91 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, Web, iOS |
| 2 | [UPDF](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/updf.md) | 91 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android |
| 3 | [PDF-XChange](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/pdf-xchange.md) | 86 | Proprietary | Windows |
| 4 | [Adobe Acrobat](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/adobe-acrobat.md) | 82 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, Web, iOS |
| 5 | [PDF Expert](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/pdf-expert.md) | 82 | Proprietary | macOS, iOS |
| 6 | [PDFgear](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/pdfgear.md) | 82 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, iOS, Web |
| 7 | [Smallpdf](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/smallpdf.md) | 78 | Proprietary | Web, Windows, iOS, Android |
| 8 | [iLovePDF](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/ilovepdf.md) | 68 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android |
| 9 | [Stirling PDF](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/stirling-pdf.md) | 68 | MIT | Web |
| 10 | [PDFsam](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/pdfsam.md) | 60 | AGPL-3.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 11 | [Sumatra PDF](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/sumatra-pdf.md) | 37 | GPL-3.0 | Windows |
| 12 | [Okular](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/okular.md) | 32 | GPL-2.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux |

Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/

## Feature comparison

Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).

| PDF tools checklist | Nitro PDF | Foxit PDF Editor | UPDF | PDF-XChange | Adobe Acrobat | PDF Expert |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Subscription | Subscription | Subscription | One-time | Subscription | Subscription |
| Starts at | ? | $129.99/year | ? | EUR €56.00 one-time | $12.99/month | €5.99/week |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS | Windows, macOS, Web, iOS, Android | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android | Windows | Windows, macOS, Web, iOS, Android | macOS, iOS |
| Edit text & images | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Annotate & comment | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fill & sign forms | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| OCR | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Merge / split / compress | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Redaction | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Batch processing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | ? |
| One-time purchase option | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Runs offline | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? |

## Sources

Sources for Nitro PDF. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **Pricing model**: Subscription — <https://www.gonitro.com/pricing> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “per user/month”
- **Platforms**: Windows, macOS — <https://www.gonitro.com/documentation/technical-requirements> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Operating system: Windows 11 or Windows 10”
- **License**: Proprietary — <https://www.gonitro.com/legal/pdf-sign/terms-of-service> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Nitro (and where applicable its licensor(s)) is and remains the sole and exclusive proprietary owner of all Nitro IP.”
- **Status**: active — <https://www.gonitro.com/documentation/release-notes> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Latest Version: 26.2 | Release Date: June 25, 2026”
- **Edit text & images**: Yes — <https://www.gonitro.com/pdf-editor> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Edit PDF text and images with full-page paragraph reflow”
- **Annotate & comment**: Yes — <https://www.gonitro.com/user-guide/pro/article/annotate-with-text-mark-up-tools> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Use text mark-up tools to highlight, underline, cross out, or replace text in a PDF.”
- **Fill & sign forms**: Yes — <https://www.gonitro.com/esignatures-forms> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Create and fill out forms with predefined fields.”
- **OCR**: Yes — <https://www.gonitro.com/ocr> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Convert scanned paper or image-based PDFs into searchable, editable text”
- **Merge / split / compress**: Yes — <https://www.gonitro.com/user-guide/pro/article/batch-processing> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Convert several files to a different document format, print in batch, or run OCR on many image-based PDF files to make their text fully searchable.”
- **Redaction**: Yes — <https://www.gonitro.com/user-guide/pro/article/redaction-in-a-pdf-file> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Redaction permanently removes parts of text or images from a PDF file, and replaces them with black rectangles.”
- **Batch processing**: Yes — <https://www.gonitro.com/user-guide/pro/article/batch-processing> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Repetitive tasks involving one or several documents can be automated with the Batch Processing tool.”
- **One-time purchase option**: Yes — <https://www.gonitro.com/pdf/nitro-pdf-classic> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “You pay once and retain access for the full three-year term.”
- **Runs offline**: Yes — <https://www.gonitro.com/documentation/technical-requirements> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Operating system: macOS 10.14 (Mojave) or later”
- **Self-hostable**: No — <https://www.gonitro.com/documentation/product-downloads> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Find the latest desktop and mobile versions of Nitro's PDF software.”

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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/