LightPDF vs Anara
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
LightPDF
This app offers a comprehensive suite of tools for managing PDF documents on your mobile device. It leverages AI to summarize, chat with, and convert PDFs, along with scanning capabilities, text extraction, and editing features. It also includes an ID photo maker and watermark removal.
- AI Chat with PDFs
- Phone Scanner to PDF
- PDF to Word/JPG/Excel Converter
- OCR Text Extraction
- PDF Editing and Annotation
- ID Photo Maker
- Watermark Removal
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LightPDF, AI-powered, is a must-have PDF toolkit for your mobile device. You can use it to summarize and chat with PDFs and other documents, and quickly get the key information from the files! And it takes advantage of AI to help you easily scan paperwork to PDFs, extract texts and remove specific objects. It can be your PDF converter, editor, reader, on-the-go mobile scanner, cloud-based PDF storage, and ID photo maker. Try LightPDF to convert, OCR, scan, edit, read, annotate, comment, compress, and merge PDFs easily and quickly to get a high-quality result. And its sharing and collaborating feature can help you communicate smoothly with your colleagues on the same PDF document, and improve your teamwork productivity. What LightPDF can do: Smart AI Chat Assistant for PDFs - Ask questions to the chatbot about your file and it will answer you with cited sources - Quickly output results in markdown and table formats - Chat with PDFs, scans, Excel, Word, PPT, and ePub documents Intelligent Phone Scanner - Take photos of your papers, cards, books, and more to turn them into PDF format. Work as your pocket PDF scanner - Extract and copy texts from paper works - Remove handwriting from the test paper - Advanced filter features for better scanning result Powerful PDF Converter with OCR - Convert PDF to Word, JPG, PNG, Excel, PPT, and TXT, as well as turn Word, PPT, Excel, JPG, PNG, and CAD formats to PDF - Equipped with OCR technology to recognize and turn PDF scans and photos into docx, xlsx, pptx, pdf, and txt formats - Convert multiple documents at the same time and quickly get your work done Cloud-based PDF Editor & Reader - Edit, sign, and add images to a PDF file - Highlight, draw markups, and insert notes into PDF - Reduce PDF file size with a few touches - Combine multiple PDF documents into one - Read PDFs, add bookmarks, search and annotate - Print PDFs directly from your devices - Auto-sync PDFs in order to work with PDFs on the go. No more worry about losing data Handy ID Photo Maker - Create ID and passport photos with ease. It allows you to remove the background, change the background color, and produce a new photo with the selected size - Unblur the photo to enhance its quality and make it clear Image Watermark Removal - AI automatically recognizes and removes watermarks from images, eliminating the need for manual smudging like in Photoshop. It is particularly effective for large logos and full-screen watermarks, enhancing learning efficiency. New Way for Teamwork - Share files via links with your team and invite multiple people to view, edit, highlight, sign, and add comments on the same PDF at the same time - Set permissions to keep PDF security under control - Upload the file to the cloud, and access it on any device - Star files as favorites to quickly find and open them Subscriptions will be charged to your credit card through your iTunes account. Your subscription will automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. After purchase, please manage your subscriptions in the App Store Account Settings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you need any help or have suggestions on LightPDF, please feel free to contact us. We can't keep making progress without your voice. Email: support@lightpdf.com Customer Service Center: https://lightpdf.com/contact FAQ: https://lightpdf.com/faqs/lightpdf-editor-faq Privacy Policy:https://lightpdf.com/privacy Terms of Service:https://lightpdf.com/terms
Anara
This AI-powered tool assists scientists with academic research. It enables searching, reading, and writing scientific content with verifiable citations. The mobile app provides on-the-go access to your library, allowing you to ask questions about papers and get cited answers.
- AI-powered academic search
- Summarize and cite sources
- Write with verifiable citations
- On-demand research on mobile
- Read and highlight PDFs offline
- Save papers and links
- Scan pages with camera
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Anara is AI purpose-built for science. Search, read, and write academic content with every claim cited back to its source. Anara searches your library and the web, summarizes what it finds, and helps you write with citations you can check. Anara is 4x more accurate than general-purpose AI like ChatGPT and Claude at finding information in documents. Our iOS app is a companion to the Anara web app, designed for on-demand research while you are away from your keyboard: Ask questions about your papers and get cited answers on the go Tap any citation to open the source at the exact passage Read and highlight your PDFs, offline once downloaded Save papers and links into your library from any app, or scan pages with your camera Anara requires an account. A free plan is available; paid plans and credit packs are offered as in-app purchases. Subscriptions renew monthly until canceled in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Terms of Service: https://anara.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://anara.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Anara at 5.0 against LightPDF's 4.1. LightPDF's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and ratings volume (54 vs 1). On price, update cadence, 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. LightPDF sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $13.99 per 7 days and Anara sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $11.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Anara holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: LightPDF has 54 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 88% of LightPDF's written reviews are positive against 80% of Anara's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
LightPDF ships an update every 2 weeks, Anara weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and November 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | LightPDF | Anara |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.1 (54 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 88.4% of reviews — better | 80.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 54 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 113 MB | 66 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Wangxu Technology Co., Ltd | Anara Labs Inc |
Customer experience
LightPDF
Anara
Bugs and requests
LightPDF
Reported bugs
5 issues- App requests more money after payment
- Paid subscription not unlocking features
- Trial period charged despite cancellation
- Scans cut off PDF to 3 pages or under
- Performance issues
Requested features
3 requests- iPad support
- Edit text in the exact same font
- More advanced editing features
Anara
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
LightPDF
- LightPDF Weekly Subscription$13.997 Days
- LightPDF Monthly Subscription2 variants$19.991 Month
- LightPDF Yearly Subscription$47.991 Year
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- LightPDF Annual Subscription$49.991 Year
- LightPDF Yearly Subscription3 Days trial$59.991 Year
- iOS LightPDF - 1 Week$9.99
- 3-Year Subscription$99.99
- Mac LightPDF Lifetime Plan$109.99
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- Buy 3 yrs Get 3 yrs Free$149.99
Anara
- Plus$11.991 Month
- Plus$14.991 Month
- Pro$23.991 Month
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- Pro$28.991 Month
- Max 5x$117.991 Month
- Max 5x$141.991 Month
- Max 20x$239.991 Month
- 500 credits$5.99
- 1,000 credits$11.99
- 20,000 credits$239.99









