I quit paying for Adobe Acrobat and switched to a free tool that does more
Adobe Acrobat is the standard tool that everyone turns to when creating or editing PDFs. However, I’ve started using a privacy-focused alternative that lets me do everything I need to with PDFs, all without subscription fees or logins.
It can even be self-hosted to give everyone on my network access to PDF editing tools.
I finally gave up on Adobe Acrobat
$180 a year is too much
Bertel King / How to Geek
I’ve used Adobe Acrobat on and off for years, but as with so many other services, I’m always on the lookout for free or self-hosted alternatives.
Adobe Acrobat costs less $15 per month, and if you opt for Acrobat Pro or Studio, you will have to pay $20 or $25 respectively. Over the course of a year, that’s a minimum of $180. If you choose to pay monthly payments, the amount will be significantly higher.
Why is everything a subscription now?
How much more can we take? Will we own anything again?
Since I don’t use it very often, it just doesn’t make sense to pay for a subscription. Unless you regularly work with PDFs in general, this doesn’t really make sense to anyone.
Additionally, I have a problem with Adobe’s cloud-first approach to its software. The few PDFs I work with usually contain sensitive information, like a social security number or tax information. Acrobat won’t do it force you to use the cloud service, but this will push you towards it.
I wanted a cheaper, simpler, more private solution, which is why I ultimately abandoned Acrobat.
BentoPDF is a free and open source alternative to Acrobat
No subscription fees in sight
BentoPDF is an all-in-one replacement for Acrobat, but it works very differently.
Acrobat is an application that you install on your computer, while BentoPDF runs in your browser. Critically, he doesn’t upload your data to their servers; All processing done by the program takes place locally on your PC using your browser.
I expected to dislike the browser-based app, but after working with it for a few days, I found that I really liked it. It works on any operating system on any device, which isn’t universally true for apps that you need to install to use.
BentoPDF does everything I need
I haven’t missed Acrobat once
Many free PDF tools are fine for simple tasks, but aren’t really viable replacements if you need everything Acrobat offers. BentoPDF is different.
It has all the essential functions (ability to merge files, split documents, rotate pages and compress PDFs) and they work quickly and reliably, even under heavy load. It even includes optical character recognition (OCR) and PDF comparison, which are handy features if you’re working with scanned documents or documents with multiple versions.
The editing tools are equally excellent. I can highlight text, add comments, draw directly on a document, and even insert images or watermarks, all without noticeable lag, although this depends on the PDF resources available.
To complement its already great feature set, BentoPDF is fully compatible with any format you might want to use. It can turn PDFs into Word documents, images or plain text, or convert files the other way if necessary.
I don’t feel the need to go back to Acrobat.
No subscription fees pay for your home server
BentoPDF is a completely free and open source program. You can use it through the website or, if you prefer, you can download the code and run it in a Docker container or on another server platform of your choice.
Of course, self-hosting has its own costs. You need hardware and power, but since Adobe Acrobat alone costs over $180 per yearThis would pay for a modest home server in just a few years, even if you only use Acrobat. If you remove other services, like Microsoft Office, OneDrive, or certain streaming services, the math becomes even more favorable.
The interface is very different
An oddity in an otherwise great program
The only slight problem with BentoPDF is the user interface. Acrobat has an interface quite similar to that of most word processors, making it relatively easy to learn and use, even if you are a beginner.
BentoPDF eschews the user interface choices you’ll find in Adobe’s software line in favor of a broad set of buttons that each perform a dedicated function. It’s very different and it took me a few minutes to get used to the layout.
On the other hand, BentoPDF’s layout is also clean and simple: you’ll never look at a button and wonder what clicking it would do.
The free option is enough for most people
Acrobat won’t be replaced by BentoPDF in professional environments, but if you’re a casual user who just needs to edit or sign a PDF, it’s a fantastic alternative. This will eventually become a permanent part of my homelab setup in the future.
