Alternatives to Adobe Acrobat Reader DC for all platforms with any license

  • Sumatra PDF

    Sumatra PDF is a slim, free, open-source PDF/DjVu/EPUB/XPS/CHM/CBR/CBZ/MOBI viewer for Windows. Why another PDF reader? Sumatra has a minimalistic design. Simplicity...

    Free Open Source Windows PortableApps.com

    Lightweight Low memory usage Export to office formats Portable ... Signing PDF Documents Tabbed interface Add a feature

    Sumatra PDF icon
    • Free, quick to install, quick to uninstall, loads fast. pbfranon • Jun 2016 • 12 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • It's nowhere as vulnerable to attacks as Adobe Reader, doesn't execute embedded JS, and renders documents blazingly fast Atoshi • Nov 2016 • 6 agrees and 3 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Very light (a few MB) and great compatibility. Guest • May 2017 • 4 agrees and 2 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Very lightweight, always works well, better performance Guest • Sep 2017 • 2 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Sumatra is perfect, lightweight, does what is useful and does it well. Guest • Aug 2016 • 6 agrees and 5 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Small, powerful, fast and very configurable. 01101001b • Oct 2017 Disagree   Agree
    • Lightweight, separate windows, loads fast. However, no form fills Guest • Apr 2018 Disagree   Agree
    • It is light, fast, free, multilingual, and open source. It is more user-friendly than Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. Guest • Jun 2018 Disagree   Agree
    • lightweight, fast to open/close, render document very fast. rickysantoso • Jul 2018 Disagree   Agree

  • Foxit Reader

    Foxit Reader is a free and light-weight multi-platform PDF document viewer. Its core function is compatible with PDF Standard 1.7. Whether you're a consumer...

    Free Personal Mac OS X Windows Linux Android iPhone ... Windows RT Android Tablet Windows Phone iPad

    PDF annotation Fill PDF Forms Sign PDF files It can open document side by side ... Support for Javascript Multiple languages Edit PDF Portable Scan to PDF Tabbed interface Tablet support Add a feature

    Foxit Reader icon
    • This one has the ability to mark PDFs for highlighting books and etc. Guest • Jun 2016 • 5 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Multi tabs, stable, and very clean design. Guest • Jan 2017 • 2 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Typewriter function can make any form a fillable form. Skip the printing and associated cost. Did this with lengthy government forms and docs. Seamless. Guest • Jul 2017 • 3 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Not as light as Sumatra PDF because have another feature. It's a great alternative to Acrobat Reader. rickysantoso • Jul 2018 Disagree   Agree

  • PDF-XChange Viewer

    PDF-XChange Viewer is an alternative viewer for PDF files that enables you to view and annotate PDF files. You can add text, sticky notes, and other annotations and save...

    Freemium Windows PortableApps.com

    PDF annotation PDF OCR Extract annotation Font identifier ... Lightweight Multiple languages Note extraction Portable Side-by-Side View Add a feature

    PDF-XChange Viewer icon
    • Has enough bells and whistles to be competitive with Adobe without all the useless bloat. Additionally, PDF-XChange Viewer has many options for software installation such as 32-bit, 64-bit, full and portable installs. Guest • Dec 2016 • 2 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Tried PDF-Zilla and Sumatra, PDF-XChange has a cleaner UI, more fluid for me. Also tried Okular, but they referred Windows users to a separate site that didn't appear to have the software available for download. As PDF-XChange doesn't work on Linux, I might try Okular on my Linux machines. Guest • Mar 2018 Disagree   Agree
    • It allows note and annotation extraction in text format (contra e.g. Sumatra or Foxit) Guest • Aug 2017 • 0 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Lightweight and efficient, loads of controls and options, free for personal use. Guest • Sep 2017 • 0 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree

  • Okular

    Okular is a universal document viewer based developed by KDE. Okular works on multiple platforms, including but not limited to Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, *BSD, etc.

    Free Open Source Mac Linux BSD

    Tabbed interface PDF annotation Fill PDF Forms Text Highlighting Add a feature

    Okular icon
    • Lightweight, can read many document fomats like cbz or cbr, can even merge pdfs Guest • Sep 2017 • 1 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Okular is a highly functional .pdf reader provided as a default with KDE and KDE's Plasma desktop environments. Open source, flexible and fast. What's not to like? JohnFastman • Dec 2016 Disagree   Agree
    • Lightweight, highly functional, and aesthetic. Guest • Oct 2017 • 0 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree

  • MuPDF

    MuPDF is a lightweight PDF and XPS viewer. The renderer in MuPDF is tailored for high quality anti-aliased graphics. It renders text with metrics and spacing...

    Free Open Source Windows Linux Android iPhone iPad ... Xfce

    Lightweight Portable Add a feature

    MuPDF icon

  • Skim

    Skim is a PDF reader and note-taker for OS X. It is designed to help you read and annotate scientific papers in PDF, but is also great for viewing any PDF file.

    Free Open Source Mac OS X

    PDF annotation Add a feature

    Skim icon

  • Nitro Reader

    Nitro Reader offers features and functionality far beyond typical PDF readers, and makes working with PDF easier than ever before. Create PDF files, comment and...

    Free Personal Windows

    Create PDF files PDF annotation Sign PDF files Add a feature

    Nitro Reader icon
    • You can create pdfs from other documents and even from pics. It has OCR so you can edit and change what is written even in a picture... plus other stuff. Guest • Mar 2017 Disagree   Agree

  • Document Viewer

    A fork of the last GPL version of EBookDroid. Supports the following formats: PDF DjVu XPS (OpenXPS) Comic...

    Free Open Source Android Android Tablet F-Droid

    No features added Add a feature

    Document Viewer icon
    • open source, fast, lightweight, support for many formats, many available settings Guest • Apr 2018 • 1 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • For android smartphones, its the best choice as it is opensource and has many features. Guest • Jun 2018 Disagree   Agree

  • qpdfview

    qpdfview is a Qt-based tabbed document viewer using the Poppler library for PDF rendering and CUPS for printing. Support for the DjVu and PostScript formats can be added...

    Free Open Source Linux Haiku Qt

    PDF annotation Fill PDF Forms Tabbed interface Add a feature

    qpdfview icon
    • Anything written using the beautiful Qt SDK (or better yet with the KDE SDK) is awesome, and it's a tabbed PDF viewer! It's sweet! SeanDFroszt • Nov 2017 Disagree   Agree

  • Xodo

    Xodo is the ultimate cross-platform PDF viewer and annotator. And it’s 100% free. Powerful, fast, and optimized for all phones and tablets, Xodo’s mobile app makes it...

    Free Android iPhone Windows RT Android Tablet Windows Phone ... iPad Kindle Fire

    PDF annotation Online Sharing Real time collaboration Scan to PDF ... Sign PDF files Add a feature

    Xodo icon
    • it can be launched faster and easily used than big apps and some alternative functions. yelinzhang • Oct 2017 • 1 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree

Platforms

Desktop

Mobile

Tablet

Browsers

Show 18 less popular platforms

License

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Comments

visually bloated

Comment by Xate
about Adobe Acrobat Reader DC · Feb 2016 · Helpful Not helpful 2 Helpful Report as spam

The new DC update gave the ever heavy and bloated adobe reader an idiotic interface. The menu bar and side bar took up too much of my screen.

reply

Comment by jamesvdm
about Adobe Acrobat Reader DC · Jun 2011 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

It's really not that big or bloated for what it does, but the weekly updates drive me insane.

reply

Comment by endolith
about Adobe Acrobat Reader DC · Jun 2011 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

Adobe Reader functions more smoothly and renders more accurately than any of the clones I have tried. I've never noticed this "bloat" that everyone complains about.

reply

Render everything properly unlike Foxit

Comment by s0me0ne
about Adobe Acrobat Reader DC and Foxit Reader · Jun 2011 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

Kinda slow, but will render everything properly unlike Foxit. Also the UI is much better since v8.

reply

Comment by slyck
about Adobe Acrobat Reader DC · Jun 2011 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

Adobe is garbage. Always has been slow and buggy. Use a quality open source alternative like Evince, Sumatra, or Okular. I guess you could use Foxit if you want adware.

reply

Comment by zzzcrash
about Adobe Acrobat Reader DC · Jun 2011 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

Honestly, I can't see any reason to use Adobe Reader anymore, at least on Windows or Linux. If you want a free program for reading pdfs, Foxit Reader is not only faster but also let's you highlight and annotate the text with ease. Adobe Reader doesn't provide any editing tools: you have to pay boatloads for Adobe Professional if you want that.

The Linux version of Foxit still needs a ton of work, but you can just use the Windows version through Wine instead. Works just fine.

reply

Comment by endolith
about Adobe Acrobat Reader DC · Jun 2011 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

I didn't realize until a few days ago that this can open and view .ai files from Adobe Illustrator. Should be added as an alternative for that.

reply

Comment by Aaron
about Adobe Acrobat Reader DC · Jun 2011 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

Its nice and has some nice features, like copying an image or test from the pdf, but for me it was always too slow. I could load up a pdf faster in just about any other program, so I dont use this anymore. It works ok, but just is not that good anymore.

reply