PDF Reader vs Polaris Viewer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
PDF Reader
Easily view PDF documents on your mobile device or tablet. Upload files via WiFi, open encrypted PDFs with a password, and enjoy adaptive screen sizing for comfortable reading. Protect your documents with app lock and gesture passwords.
- View PDF documents
- WiFi file upload
- Encrypted PDF support
- Adaptive screen size
- Read Word, Excel, PPT
- App lock and gesture password
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PDF Reader, Easy read PDF documents for Mobile and Pad . WiFi easy Upload PDF documents to the phone. Support to view encrypted PDF documents, long press the document to enter the password. Document adaptive screen size, easy to read. Support read word, excel, ppt and other format documents. APP lock, gesture password, protect privacy, protect document security.
Polaris Viewer
This app offers a mobile-optimized experience for viewing various document types, including Microsoft Office files, PDFs, and TXT. It provides smart document management features and supports cloud integration for easy access to your files.
- Mobile optimized document viewer
- Supports Microsoft Office, PDF, TXT, Zip, CSV
- Cloud storage integration (iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.)
- Smart document management
- App lock with fingerprint, face, or password
- Night mode and paper texture background options
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Polaris Office, selected by 100 million users across the world, provides mobile optimized document viewer at the requests of numerous users. Using compact and stable Polaris Office Viewer which takes some edit functions out and strengthens view function, quickly and easily manage all the document files such as Microsoft Office, TXT, Zip file, as well as Adobe PDF! ■ Supporting Languages ■ • English, Korean, Japanese, German, Russian, Indonesian, Brazilian Portuguese ■ Supported formats ■ • (NEW) Now we support CSV format. • Microsoft Word : DOC, DOCX • Microsoft Excel : XLS, XLSX • Microsoft Powerpoint : PPT, PPTX, PPS, PPSX • Other documents and files : PDF, TXT, ODT, Zip ■ Main functions ■ Mobile optimized document viewer : Supporting must-have functions to easily view the documents in Mobile. • Landscape mode / Portrait mode / Multi window mode • View per page, View in a row • Able to dim the screen and choose background (Providing Night mode and Paper texture) • Supporting text copy function in document Smart document managing : Supporting the functions for managing various documents more efficiently. • Able to check all the documents in My device storage & other cloud service (Supporting iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, WebDAV, FTP) • Able to manage main documents separately through bookmark settings. • Support various sorting methods. (Name order / Date order / Size order etc) • Support view function per document format. • Able to search document you need through search function. • Able to use App lock function (via fingerprint, face, password) ■ Note ■ • Homepage : Polarisoffice.com • Facebook : facebook.com/polarisoffice • Youtube : youtube.com/user/infrawareinc • Inquiry : support@polarisoffice.com • Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy : www.polarisoffice.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Polaris Viewer at 4.6 against PDF Reader's 3.5. Polaris Viewer also leads on review sentiment (56% vs 33%) and ratings volume (74 vs 2). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. PDF Reader sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Polaris Viewer sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Polaris Viewer holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Polaris Viewer has 74 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 33% of PDF Reader's written reviews are positive against 56% of Polaris Viewer's.
PDF Reader ships an update every 9 months, Polaris Viewer every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 2, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | PDF Reader | Polaris Viewer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.5 (2 ratings) | 4.6 (74 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 33.3% of reviews | 56.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 74 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 9 months | Every 3 months — better |
| Ads | Yes | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 177 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 小玲 白 | Polaris Office Corp. |
Customer experience
PDF Reader
Polaris Viewer
In-app purchases
PDF Reader
- Permanently remove ads$1.99
Polaris Viewer
- Remove Ads$10.99
