Open Source Adobe Acrobat DC AlternativesPDF Readers & PDF Editors like Adobe Acrobat DC

The best open source alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC is PdfCraft. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Adobe Acrobat DC and loads of them is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to Adobe Acrobat DC are Stirling PDF, BentoPDF, LEKTRA and GImageReader.

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Most Adobe Acrobat DC alternatives are PDF Editors, but you can also narrow the list to PDF Readers or Document Managers. Other popular filters are Open Source, Free, Mac and Windows. You can also filter for EU-based alternatives if you prefer software from the European Union.

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Adobe Acrobat DC alternatives page was last updated Oct 22, 2026

PdfCraft
43 likes
Read, organize, combine, split and secure PDFs in a fast, native app written in Rust from the ground up. No account, no telemetry, no cloud.
87 PdfCraft alternatives
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (Apache-2.0)
Application typeApplication types
PDF Reader
PDF Editor
Origin
United States
Since
New
Platforms
Windows
Mac
Linux
Online
United States
+1
Good alternative?Is PdfCraft a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?

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1comment
PdfCraft vs Adobe Acrobat DC Comments
Positive comment by IM2MikeJones · Oct 22, 2026
PDF Craft is only in alpha, but it has already replaced Adobe Acrobat in our business. PDF Craft has the exact same interface as Adobe Acrobat, so there is no learning curve.
1 of 1 comments
PdfCraft is Free and Open SourceAdobe Acrobat DC is Paid and Proprietary
PdfCraft is LightweightAdobe Acrobat DC is not according to our users
Stirling PDF
73 likes
Locally hosted web application offering an interactive GUI to merge, split, reorganize, convert, compress, watermark, secure, sign, flatten, repair, extract images, detect blanks, apply OCR, set permissions, and enable file processing or API integration for PDFs.
145 Stirling PDF alternatives
Cost / License
Freemium
Open Source
Application typeApplication types
PDF Editor
PDF Reader
Origin
United States
Since
Since 2023
Platforms
Windows
Mac
Online
Self-Hosted
Cloudron
Docker Hub
United States
+2
Good alternative?Is Stirling PDF a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?

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1comment
Stirling PDF vs Adobe Acrobat DC Comments
Negative comment by KimiBCN · Oct 16, 2025
It lacks many features and has bugs. The PDF open button sometimes disappears.
1 of 1 comments
Stirling PDF is Freemium and Open SourceAdobe Acrobat DC is Paid and Proprietary
Stirling PDF is a PDF Editor Adobe Acrobat DC is a PDF Reader
Stirling PDF is Privacy focusedAdobe Acrobat DC is not according to our users
BentoPDF
25 likes
BentoPDF is a PDF Toolkit that works fully offline with no sign ups. It's fast, secure and forever free. In an era where data is a commodity, we take a different approach. All processing for BentoPDF tools happens locally in your browser.
107 BentoPDF alternatives
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (AGPL-3.0)
Application typeApplication types
PDF Editor
PDF Reader
Origin
India
Since
Since 2025
Platforms
Online
Self-Hosted
India
Good alternative?Is BentoPDF a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?
LEKTRA
20 likes
High-performance viewer for documents and images offering split tabs, customizable single or book layouts, portals for side-by-side sections, instant search, line highlight, annotation tools, link hints, searchable highlights, session management, and TOML config.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (AGPL-3.0)
Application typeApplication types
PDF Reader
Ebook Reader
Origin
Spain
EU
Since
Since 2026
Platforms
Windows
Mac
Linux
Spain
EU
Good alternative?Is LEKTRA a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?
GImageReader
77 likes
gImageReader is a simple Gtk/Qt front-end to the Tesseract OCR Engine.
125 GImageReader alternatives
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Application type
Screenshot Capture
Origin
Switzerland
Since
Since 2014
Platforms
Windows
Linux
Switzerland
Good alternative?Is GImageReader a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?

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1comment
GImageReader vs Adobe Acrobat DC Comments
Negative comment by KimiBCN · Oct 16, 2025
It's not an alternative to Acrobat Pro; it lacks many features.
1 of 1 comments
GImageReader is Free and Open SourceAdobe Acrobat DC is Paid and Proprietary
GImageReader is a Screenshot Capture Adobe Acrobat DC is a PDF Reader
PaperKnife
11 likes
Privacy-first PDF utility (Zero-Server Architecture). Merge, split, compress, and edit PDFs 100% locally on your device. No uploads, no servers, no tracking.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (AGPL-3.0)
Application type
PDF Editor
Since
Since 2026
Platforms
Online
Android
F-Droid
Good alternative?Is PaperKnife a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?
Signature PDF
14 likes
Free open-source web software for signing (alone or with others), organizing (merge, sort, rotate, delete, extract pages, ...), editing metadatas or compressing PDFs.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (AGPL-3.0)
Application type
PDF Editor
Origin
France
EU
Since
Since 2024
Platforms
Online
Self-Hosted
Docker Hub
France
EU
+5
Good alternative?Is Signature PDF a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?
Sioyek
25 likes
Sioyek is a PDF viewer with minimal interface optimized for reading research papers and technical books.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (GPL-3.0)
Application type
PDF Reader
Origin
United States
Since
Since 2021
Platforms
Windows
Mac
Linux
United States
+2
Good alternative?Is Sioyek a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?

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1comment
Sioyek vs Adobe Acrobat DC Comments
Positive comment by Guest · Dec 17, 2022
I love Sioyek because it has blazingly fast update time when a pdf modified. very suitable for latex with (n)vim/emacs user.
1 of 1 comments
Sioyek is Free and Open SourceAdobe Acrobat DC is Paid and Proprietary
Sioyek is LightweightAdobe Acrobat DC is not according to our users
Paperwork
42 likes
Paperwork is a personal document manager for scanned documents (and PDFs).
56 Paperwork alternatives
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Application type
Document Manager
Origin
France
EU
Since
Since 2014
Platforms
Windows
Linux
Flathub
France
EU
+1
Good alternative?Is Paperwork a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?
Papers
14 likes
A document viewer for the GNOME desktop. You can view, search or annotate documents in many different formats.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (GPL-2.0)
Application typeApplication types
PDF Reader
Ebook Reader
Origin
United States
Since
Since 2024
Platforms
Linux
GNOME
Linux Mobile
Flathub
Flatpak
United States
Good alternative?Is Papers a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?

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1comment
Papers vs Adobe Acrobat DC Comments
Negative comment by Shaz Shah · Dec 10, 2024
It's not a PDF editor, but a really nice looking viewer/reader.
1 of 1 comments
Papers is Free and Open SourceAdobe Acrobat DC is Paid and Proprietary
Papers is Privacy focused and LightweightAdobe Acrobat DC is not according to our users
OCRmyPDF
18 likes
OCRmyPDF adds an OCR text layer to scanned PDF files, allowing them to be searched - jbarlow83/OCRmyPDF
34 OCRmyPDF alternatives
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Since
Since 2019
Platforms
Windows
Mac
Linux
Good alternative?Is OCRmyPDF a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?
PDFtk
19 likes
PDFtk is a simple tool for doing everyday things with PDF documents. It comes in three flavors: PDFtk Free, PDFtk Pro, and our original command-line tool PDFtk Server.
63 PDFtk alternatives
Cost / License
Freemium
Open Source
Application type
PDF Editor
Origin
United States
Since
Since 2013
Platforms
Windows
Mac
Linux
Self-Hosted
United States
Good alternative?Is PDFtk a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat DC?

12 of 66 Adobe Acrobat DC alternatives

Open Source Adobe Acrobat DC AlternativesPDF Readers & PDF Editors like Adobe Acrobat DC

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PdfCraft

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Stirling PDF

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BentoPDF

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LEKTRA

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GImageReader

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PaperKnife

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Signature PDF

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Sioyek

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Paperwork

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Papers

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OCRmyPDF

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PDFtk

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