Alternatives to Okular
KDE's universal document viewer
Okular ranks #13 of 13 in PDF tools, with an Alt Score of 32. It is licensed under GPL-2.0, free and available on Windows, macOS and Linux. 10 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source.
Students, researchers, and anyone who reads or annotates documents on Linux, Windows, or macOS and wants one viewer instead of separate apps per file type.
A free, open-source universal document viewer supporting PDF, EPub, DjVu, Markdown, images, and comic book archives (CBR/CBZ). It includes annotation and highlighting tools, text/image selection with magnification, digital signature verification for PDFs, and sidebar navigation with thumbnails and table of contents.
Open a document and Okular auto-detects the format and renders it with the appropriate backend. Use the sidebar to navigate via thumbnails or table of contents, and switch between browsing, selection, and annotation modes as needed.
Why people leave Okular
Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.
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Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
Feature comparison
Rows come from the PDF tools checklist (14 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.
| PDF tools checklist | Okular | Foxit PDF Editor | Nitro PDF | UPDF | PDF-XChange | Adobe Acrobat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||||||
| Starts at | ||||||
| License | ||||||
| Platforms | ||||||
| Edit text & images | ||||||
| Annotate & comment | ||||||
| Fill & sign forms | ||||||
| OCR | ||||||
| Merge / split / compress | ||||||
| Redaction | ||||||
| Batch processing | ||||||
| One-time purchase option | ||||||
| Runs offline | ||||||
| Self-hostable |
Every fact and feature listed for Okular is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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Pricing model Free verified 2026-07-11
Okular - Free download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9n41msq1wnm8?hl=en-US&gl=US -
License GPL-2.0 verified 2026-07-11
This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
https://docs.kde.org/stable_kf6/en/okular/okular/credits.html -
Platforms Windows, macOS, Linux verified 2026-07-11
Okular is already available on majority of Linux distributions. It can be installed directly from Discover, GNOME Software or your distribution's software store.
https://okular.kde.org/download/ -
Status active verified 2026-07-11
The 26.04 version of Okular has been released. This release includes several minor fixes and feature enhancements.
https://okular.kde.org/news/okular_26.04_released/ -
Edit text & images No verified 2026-07-11
Okular is a KDE universal document viewer based on KPDF code.
https://docs.kde.org/stable_kf6/en/okular/okular/index.html -
Annotate & comment Yes verified 2026-07-11
Graphic annotations like Pop-up Note, Inline Note, Freehand Line, Highlighter, Straight Line, Polygon, Stamp, Underline, Ellipse, and Typewriter.
https://docs.kde.org/stable_kf6/en/okular/okular/annotations.html -
Fill & sign forms Partial verified 2026-07-11
Okular does not have the ability to create such certificates since they need to be issued by certificate authorities to be useful for validation, etc.
https://docs.kde.org/stable_kf6/en/okular/okular/signatures.html -
OCR No verified 2026-07-11
add OCR for building TextPages out of pure graphical (aka scanned) pages
https://github.com/KDE/okular/blob/master/TODO -
Merge / split / compress No verified 2026-07-11
Annotations Forms Inverse Search pdfsync, synctex Document Rights Embedded Files Sounds Movies
https://okular.kde.org/formats/ -
Redaction No verified 2026-07-11
Graphic annotations like Pop-up Note, Inline Note, Freehand Line, Highlighter, Straight Line, Polygon, Stamp, Underline, Ellipse, and Typewriter.
https://docs.kde.org/stable_kf6/en/okular/okular/annotations.html -
Batch processing No verified 2026-07-11
Annotations Forms Inverse Search pdfsync, synctex Document Rights Embedded Files Sounds Movies
https://okular.kde.org/formats/ -
One-time purchase option No verified 2026-07-11
Okular - Free download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9n41msq1wnm8?hl=en-US&gl=US -
Runs offline Yes verified 2026-07-11
Okular is already available on majority of Linux distributions. It can be installed directly from Discover, GNOME Software or your distribution's software store.
https://okular.kde.org/download/ -
Self-hostable No verified 2026-07-11
Okular is a KDE universal document viewer based on KPDF code.
https://docs.kde.org/stable_kf6/en/okular/okular/index.html
FAQ
Yes. PDFgear, Smallpdf and iLovePDF have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
Stirling PDF, PDFsam and Sumatra PDF — every license claim links its source.