Adobe Acrobat vs. Tungsten Power PDF

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
Tungsten Power PDF
Score 9.4 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Tungsten Power PDF (formerly Kofax) is a solution to manage PDFs for businesses and individuals available with a one-time purchase with no subscription fees. It has a built-in eSignature integration with SignDoc and DocuSign for a complete end-to-end document…
$129
one-time fee per license
Pricing
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
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
Power PDF Standard
$129
one-time fee per license
Power PDF for Mac
$129
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Advanced
$179
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Business
Get a Quote
per year per seat
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDesktop licenses are buy once, own forever. No subscription fees. Business server licenses are term-based or perpetual with optional maintenance & support contract. Volume and upgrade discounts available.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Considered Both Products
Adobe Acrobat
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Both read documents through Adobe, which is better for security and because the service is more optimized.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is the gold standard and you pay for it. It is easy to use and works how you expect it to. The alternatives are cheaper, but don't offer as many features, and require retaining everyone to switch applications.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
In comparison to Smallpdf and iLovePDF, inevitably, Adobe Acrobat is the most popular and higher marketed software. Additionally, Smallpdf and iLovePDF are online conversion software, so your document needs to be uploaded to a cloud where it is converted and then you need to …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
This isn't really a good comparison, but Adobe Acrobat is more of a program that works among all of these, and I'll keep using it as long as it's a part of Adobe CC. Otherwise, I see DocuSign as suitable for secure/private documents, and Dropbox file previews allows a pretty …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
It offers functionality that the office suite just doesn't really seem to dabble in e.g. locking down documents or proper redaction abilities.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is light-years beyond GIMP. Not only is it a better way to view photos for documents, it is far easier to use at it is visually pleasing and easy to navigate. Adobe is more robust than Canva. Though Canva has more creative capabilities, Adobe has more …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe stacks up very well against Microsoft 365. In addition, it also integrates well with many of the tools offered through our Microsoft 365 subscription and in many cases increases the value and functionality of those tools and programs. Adobe Acrobat serves to fill out our …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
There's no comparison; Adobe does it better, faster and more reliable. It's interface is simpler, more intuitive and easier to use. Acrobat is an industry go to solution for business needs. We value its solid foundation, limited issues and dependability.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
I don't use any of the aforementioned anymore, so that pretty much says it all. They don't stack up. I use Salesforce, but not for document saving. Only for it's other CRM features. Microsoft 365 Business I use, but there is always a needed add on when it comes to document …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
The team has been able to streamline patient management using Cerner’s practice management tools. As a result, scheduling, billing, and documentation have become more efficient, reducing administrative burden and improving overall patient care. The team has been able to enhance …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat stands out because its more powefull and feature rich as compared to these free tools. and it offers more compatibilty, security and many other editing options in a single software. which is much suitable for professional work rather than these cheap alternatives. …
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Not applicable. Acrobat is a legacy product for us.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
I have never used another product other than Adobe Acrobat and there is a reason for it. Adobe Acrobat is the best and it works with every system globally.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Experience Manager and Asset Data Manager
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat has more functions that a lot of the PDF converters and editors that are web based. It's also easier to use than the Microsoft one.
Chose Adobe Acrobat
Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator CC and Adobe InDesign
Chose Adobe Acrobat
It was provided as a tool by company so no evaluation was done personally by me
Tungsten Power PDF
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
PDF exchange is much better because it includes more professional features needed for engineers And professionals. It also has a lot of features that makes the interface much more easy to use such as the ability to copy the file directly into your clipboard from the PDF …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
My CFO mandated Tungsten due to cost. I prefer Adobe, but no longer have access to it.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Acrobat Reader
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Much easier to use. TBH I bought Nuance based on reviews and price point. A risk that proved worth taking.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
I have used Tungsten's Power PDF for several years now and cannot remember the other pdf programs I used to use.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Just as good if not better than the Adobe product line with less cost. We needed a PDF writer and editor. Tungsten Power PDF allowed us the same functionality at a fraction of the cost. We thought it was worth trying and it was definitely a great choice for our business …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Adobe is overly expensive.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Similar functionality, easier to use, less expensive.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Low cost with similar function
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Ease of use, dependability, local access without the need for an online connection or subscription, and general familiarity of the software after years of use. Nitro is difficult to use, never works right, and jumbles files where it is hard to find what you are working on. …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Tungsten Power PDF is easier to use and more user friendly than Adobe Acrobat. Most versions of Adobe Acrobat either do not have all of the features that Tungsten Power PDF has, or charge a fee/premium for licensing. Tungsten Power PDF integrates all of these features into …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
ease of use, cost savings, intuitive interface
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
We have had instances where we've used the other two products. Adobe did not offer a one time payment at the time so we did not go with that one. Most users currently use Foxit. I would not say that Foxit nor Kofax really beat each other out, some prefer one or the other based …
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Adobe Acrobat and Nuance Power PDF, which is the core of Kofax Power PDF. Kofax Power PDF generally performs as well Acrobat, without the high price.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Acrobat, however the cost was prohibitive.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Kofax Power PDF is cheaper than Adobe Acrobat and has better functionality when it comes to editing PDF documents
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Adobe Acrobat Professional. I prefer the Kofax Power PDF Product, but as I advised above, because I use LEAP, I have to use Adobe Acrobat Professional
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
The worst part of the Adobe product is you have to pay monthly. I think, the second problem is their interface sucks. John Warnock would be turning in his grave.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
Web based programs have been used in the past but are very restrictive
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
I used PDFelement. It has an intuitive interface but I found Kofax to be more professional and productive.
Chose Tungsten Power PDF
I have used (and still use) Adobe Acrobat (also named Acrobat DC) with customer computer. The use is fairly identical in function and use. Based on price model I prefer to pay a one time fee for Kofax Power PDF over monthly payment for Adobe.
Features
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
PDF Editors
Comparison of PDF Editors features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Acrobat
-
Ratings
Tungsten Power PDF
7.8
Ratings
7% below category average
Edit Text and Images00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Merge or Split PDFs00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Add Annotations00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Text Recognition (OCR)00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Page Management00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Form Creation and Editing00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Secure PDFs00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Convert to Different Formats00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Comment and Review Tools00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Undo and Redo Actions00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Small Businesses
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.1 out of 10
pdfFiller
pdfFiller
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
MSB Docs
MSB Docs
Score 9.4 out of 10
pdfFiller
pdfFiller
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Tungsten Capture
Tungsten Capture
Score 8.0 out of 10
Bluebeam
Bluebeam
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.7
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.3
(0 ratings)
9.8
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.1
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.8
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
3.6
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.6
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.5
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
4.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
5.5
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe AcrobatTungsten Power PDF
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe Acrobat is well-suited for editing documents and combining them into a single document if you have such a need. It is super easy, and you can even rearrange the order in which you combine them by simply dragging the documents into the desired order. Adobe Acrobat is great for adding contact documents to your website that customers fill out and complete. Adobe sends it to your email and alerts you so you can then manage the contact from there.
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Tungsten does not handle movement of pages well inside of document. Small documents with under 10 pages is fine, but 100+ page documents are extremely difficult to move pages or groups of pages around. We replace Adobe with Tungsten and in general the reception has been fine. It is a little clunky with clicking on links instead PDF's as you have you click the hand, and then to copy text you have to go back and click the arrow.
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Pros
  • The edit PDF tool is a game changer for our business. There is no other tool that is as easy to use for small, quick PDF edits.
  • Adobe Acrobat makes adding, deleting, and combining PDFs very simple and seamless.
  • The comment tools, and the function to share for my comments with my colleagues, makes it easy to collaborate with my team on the same PDF document.
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  • Typewriter functionality is great, although can take some time to load. This allows you to fill in text wherever applicable without turning the rest of the pdf into editable text.
  • Fast load times
  • Has autogenerated text feature so anything in the pdf can become editable
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Cons
  • Maintain the layout when converting; sometimes, it loses the layout, and things are misaligned.
  • This makes it easier to write in custom text on a PDF, but sometimes I have to convert it from a PDF to a doc to achieve.
  • Menu could be easier to find things.
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  • I find that quickly editing text within a document or adding a line of text is clunky and can snowball into things popping out of place. I prefer to export text, and then work on it elsewhere.
  • Sometimes it seems that text recognition is trying too hard and throws me paper punches as "O"s and wrinkles as shapes, so I have to get rid of those artifacts.
  • The "Update Available" popup which is usually not an actual update announcement but rather an offer to sell me something is annoying.
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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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It was very easy to learn the software and find the features I needed, and I was able to use the help menu for any questions I had. Staff was easily able to start using with no additional training. It easily works with things created in Adobe - handling field forms just fine.
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Usability
The features on the desktop version are all toolbar based, which makes it a little more cumbersome on a smaller device (and much simpler on a large screen). The web forms adjust well to different screen size so work well on mobile, tablet and computer
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It is fast and easy to get the hang of. It really didn't take a lot of effort to learn how to use this program and I appreciated that it was pretty "plug and play" and there wasn't a long learning curve.
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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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Other that a PDF partially disappearing if left up for a long period of time - no issues. (If you close it and reopen it, it is all there. We have some PDFs that are 400-600 pages long.)
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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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Pages nearly always load at the expected rapid speed. Some documents that print quickly from Adobe Reader print much more slowly from Power PDF. I have never generated a report - that's a feature I didn't know existed until now and do not know what it's for
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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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I haven't had much interaction with support for this product as it is relatively easy for me to use and intuitive. When Kofax acquired the program it rewrote some of the features and I think I reached out for help at one point but tech support provided a quick answer. I did have a very positive experience with the sales staff who helped me get a discount on the current version because I'm a long-time user.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
I got an overview of the product from my predecessor who was about to retire from the job I now hold. He did not go into very many of the features and probably only knew about the ones he used most frequently.
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Online Training
Easy to follow and understand
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We watched the training videos and tested out the features and functionality side by side. Some features are not used on a regular basis is it is convenient to go back and review training on that particular functionality when needed.
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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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It was simple and we were using the program the same day. It was as easy as downloading the program and getting in there and playing around. We felt comfortable with it within the first few hours of use.
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Alternatives Considered
In my opinion, both complement each other. Microsoft clearly has with Copilot the AI Edge. However, the visual dynamics of Adobe Creative are Outstanding and provide a balanced approach to creativity, utilizing both Excellent, user-friendly Tools.
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I initially selected Tungsten Power PDF because it was more affordable; however, I soon discovered the features and stability of the Tungsten product was comparable to working directly within the Adobe environment. I feel very confident now, that I would select Tungsten Power PDF ABOVE any of the Adobe products and not just because of the price point!
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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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Not really familiar since I'm the only person who uses it. But in the past it has been my understanding that Power PDF was offered only on a single-license basis, so it's been expensive for me to use it at home and at work because I had to pay for it on my own. In my current position management supports it so I at least only have to pay for it once.
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Return on Investment
  • Automation of contract offer generation enabled the HR team to reduce the time to process contracts by 97%.
  • The automated workflow is more accurate and decreased document errors by up to 90 percent.
  • The signature collecting process was cut from a minimum of 30 minutes to only 2 minutes.
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  • I save hundreds every month by not sending documents to outside editors.
  • On a monthly basis, I have received files that would be very limited in use, but the PDF software allows me to work with them, saving hours of human power otherwise wasted.
  • The software is worth the money, but it can be more competitively priced.
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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.

Tungsten Power PDF Screenshots

Screenshot of the PDF Create Assistant, which can be used to create multiple PDFs at the same time from a variety of source formats. Create individual PDFs, or combine into one PDF package.Screenshot of PDF Profiles that can be created to apply commonly desired settings to new PDF documents created in Power PDF.Screenshot of the application's color, changed from purple to blue, light gray or dark gray.Screenshot of some lightweight document automation that can also be achieved with the Watched Folder and Sequence features.Screenshot of where packages can be signed with pre built templates using Kofax Sign Doc or other integrating e-signersScreenshot of PDFs that can be navigated with a thumbnail view