Compared to the alternatives
We wrote this, so weigh it accordingly. The section on where they beat us is the part worth reading.
Where we are better
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Your files are not uploaded
Smallpdf and iLovePDF both send your document to a server, process it there and delete it later. That is a reasonable design and they are careful about it. Ours does not need the trust, because the document never moves.
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The free tier is not two tasks a day
Their limits are shaped by their costs - each conversion runs on hardware they pay for. Ours runs on yours, so being generous is free for us. Fifteen a day with a free account.
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The limit resets at your midnight
Not at a server's midnight in another timezone.
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You can buy one day
Most PDF problems are incidental: one deadline, one evening. Neither of them sells that; both sell a subscription.
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Prices adjusted by country
A single dollar price is a different product in Jakarta than in Sydney.
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It works offline
Installed as an app on the Pro plan, the tools keep working with no connection - because they never needed one.
Where they are better
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Office conversion fidelity
Converting a complex Word document to PDF on a server, with a real Office rendering engine, reproduces pagination and fonts more faithfully than our in-browser typesetter can. If your document has to look exactly right, their output will usually be closer to it. We say so on each conversion page too.
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Very large files
A 500 MB scanned PDF will exhaust the memory a browser tab is allowed before it exhausts a server. On files that size they will finish and we may not.
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Speed on a slow device
Their processing happens on fast hardware. Ours happens on your phone. On an older phone, a heavy job is genuinely slower here.
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Maturity
They have been doing this for years, with support teams, compliance certifications and integrations with Dropbox and Google Drive. We have none of that yet.
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Signatures with legal weight in more places
Their signature products come with identity verification and audit trails that ours does not attempt.
Which to use
If your document is confidential, or you are on a metered connection, or you need more than a couple of tasks a day without paying, use this. If you are converting a complicated Office document that has to be pixel-accurate, or a file so large a browser cannot hold it, use theirs. Both can be true on the same day.
Product names belong to their owners, and we are not affiliated with either company. Details here were accurate when written and their plans change; check anything you are about to rely on.