Comparison

Pages vs Microsoft Word

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Pages

Create visually appealing documents with a wide range of templates and editing tools. Enhance your work with multimedia, track changes, and collaborate seamlessly. Offers advanced features for writing, design, and presentation.

Highlights
  • Apple-designed templates
  • Add images, video, audio
  • Track changes and comments
  • Screen View for mobile editing
  • Interactive EPUB creation
  • Drawing and annotation with Apple Pencil
  • Writing Tools for AI assistance
Features
Read full description

Pages is now part of Apple Creator Studio, an amazing collection of Apple’s most powerful creative apps designed to help you bring your ideas to life. The suite includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage — plus premium content and intelligence features in Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform, all in one simple plan. Creating, viewing, and editing documents in Pages, as well as collaborating with others in real time, does not require a subscription. Create beautiful documents with Pages on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Start with an Apple-designed template for a report, resume, poster, or digital book. Easily add images, movies, audio, tables, charts, and shapes. Use comments, change tracking, and highlights to review your work. On iPhone and iPad, Screen View optimizes content for your screen, making it easier to edit. Get Started Quickly • Work from iPhone, iPad, Mac, or even a PC with iCloud.com • Select from a wide variety of Apple-designed templates • Add from a library of shapes, tables, and charts with pre-defined styles • Import and edit Microsoft Word and text files Create Beautiful Documents • Format your document with gorgeous styles, fonts, and textures • Make your content more engaging with recorded audio, video, and image galleries • Create page templates to keep the design consistent across your page layout document • Use powerful graphics tools including image background removal and masking • Design interactive EPUB books that can be shared with others or published to Apple Books • Draw, write or annotate with Apple Pencil on iPad Advanced Tools • Use the table of contents view to easily navigate your document or book • Add comments and join threaded conversations • Turn on change tracking to mark up a document as you edit it • Create footnotes and endnotes and view character, word, and paragraph counts • Add elegant mathematical equations using LaTeX or MathML notation • Use presenter mode on iPhone and iPad to auto scroll text while giving a speech • Seamless integration with EndNote for inserting citations on Mac* Share with Anyone • Share your document publicly or collaborate with specific people using iCloud or Box • Make changes from any device and see a list of changes from others in real-time • Export your document in EPUB, Microsoft Word, RTF, TXT, and PDF format Apple Intelligence • Use Writing Tools to proofread, rewrite, summarize, and compose text • Create your own fun images with Image Playground based on a description Some features of Apple Creator Studio require an Apple Intelligence–capable device. For full system requirements and usage limits for Apple Creator Studio intelligence features, see Apple Support article 125029. * EndNote sold separately. EndNote integration requires a plug-in available from Apple Support.

About

Microsoft Word

Create, edit, and share documents on your mobile device. This powerful word processor offers templates, formatting tools, and collaborative features to help you write impactful text documents, resumes, and more. Your office moves with you, allowing for seamless editing and sharing from anywhere.

Highlights
  • Create and edit documents
  • Modern templates
  • Rich formatting and layout options
  • Reading view
  • Collaborate with comments
  • Version history
  • Simplified sharing
Read full description

Send, open and edit Office files from your mobile with the full power of Microsoft’s word-processing tools. Whether you're a writer, freelancer, student or project manager, Word moves with you. Enhance your writing with Copilot in Word when signed in with your Microsoft 365 subscription.* Draft, edit, collaborate, and share with confidence – anytime, anywhere. Create impactful blogs, proposals, CVs, branding materials and more. Customise every document with rich formatting options and professionally designed templates. Create Documents • Kick-start projects with templates for letters, CVs, scripts, proposals, invoices and more • Use robust formatting and layout tools to express ideas clearly • Maintain a polished look across all your devices Read, Write and Edit Anywhere • Edit long documents, letters and scripts on your device with familiar writing tools • Open attachments with the built in viewer • Convert PDFs to Word for quick editing Collaborate and Share • Leave comments directly next to relevant text • Work with others in real time and track layout or formatting changes • Use version history to view and restore previous drafts Simplified Sharing • Invite others to edit or view in just a few taps • Manage permissions and see who’s active in the document • Copy formatted content into emails or attach your files instantly AI Assistance with Copilot* • Draft CVs, polish proposals and organise ideas in seconds • Summarise, refine and format content instantly • Get intelligent suggestions to make your writing clear and compelling *Unlock the full Microsoft 365 experience with a qualifying subscription on phone, tablet, PC or Mac. Microsoft 365 subscriptions purchased in app will be charged to your App Store account and automatically renew unless auto renew is turned off 24 hours before the billing period ends. Manage your subscription in your App Store account settings. Subscriptions cannot be cancelled during the active period. This app may be provided by Microsoft or a third party publisher and is subject to its own privacy statement and terms. Data may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States or other regions where Microsoft or its affiliates operate. EULA: http://aka.ms/eula

Screenshots

Pages4 screens
Microsoft Word4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Pages at none against Microsoft Word's 13. Pages also leads on review sentiment (59% vs 37%). Microsoft Word's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 3 months) and chart position (#14 vs unranked). On price, rating, ads and device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Microsoft Word sells 12 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. Pages asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Pages against 4.7 for Microsoft Word. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Microsoft Word has 3M ratings behind it against 551K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 59% of Pages's written reviews are positive against 37% of Microsoft Word's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pages ships an update every 3 months, Microsoft Word weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Pages versus Microsoft Word: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPagesMicrosoft Word
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (551K ratings)4.7 (3M ratings) — better
Positive reviews59.4% of reviews — better36.9% of reviews
Number of ratings551K3M — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank—#14 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, Vision Pro
Requires iOS18.018.0
Further details — not scored
Size656 MB527 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAppleMicrosoft Corporation

Customer experience

Pages

All ratings550,742 ratings
Positive91.4%
Neutral3.4%
Negative5.2%
Written reviews7,856 reviews
Positive59.4%
Neutral9.3%
Negative31.3%

Microsoft Word

All ratings2,983,486 ratings
Positive93.7%
Neutral2.4%
Negative3.9%
Written reviews4,808 reviews
Positive36.9%
Neutral7.0%
Negative56.1%

User reviews

Pages

From 551K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💻 Versatile writing app
  • 🎨 Excellent creative features
  • 🤝 Collaborative capabilities
  • 📚 Great for writing books/stories
  • 🏫 Useful for school/work documents

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional glitches and crashes
  • 🔍 Difficult to find/organize documents
  • 🖋️ Frustrating cursor and text editing
  • 🔄 Inconsistent sync and file management
  • 🔢 Limited font and formatting options

Microsoft Word

From 3M App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Seamless sync between devices
  • 📝 Great for writing and editing
  • 🔒 Secure document storage
  • 💡 Helpful for school and work

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and data loss
  • ⏱️ Laggy and slow performance
  • 💰 Expensive subscription required
  • 🤔 Limited functionality compared to desktop

Bugs and requests

Pages

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Documents disappearing or failing to save
  • Keyboard freezing and unresponsive typing
  • Formatting issues when importing/exporting files
  • Compatibility problems with older devices/OS versions

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more font and formatting options
  • Improve cursor and text editing controls
  • Streamline document organization and search
  • Enhance sync and offline editing capabilities
  • Integrate grammar/spelling correction tools

Microsoft Word

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Inconsistent saving and syncing between devices
  • Cursor positioning issues when editing text
  • Formatting problems when importing documents
  • Unreliable text selection and highlighting

Requested features

4 requests
  • Improved mouse/trackpad support
  • Built-in citation and bibliography tools
  • More customization options for formatting
  • Ability to edit documents offline

In-app purchases

None

Pages

No in-app purchases

12 purchases

Microsoft Word

Subscriptions12
  • Office 365 Personal1 Month trial$5.991 Month
  • Office 365 Personal1 Month trial$6.991 Month
  • Office 365 Home1 Month trial$9.991 Month
Show 9 more
  • Microsoft 365 Personal1 Month trial$9.991 Month
  • Microsoft 365 Personal Student1 Month trial$9.991 Month
  • Microsoft 365 Family1 Month trial$12.991 Month
  • Microsoft 365 Premium Monthly1 Month trial$19.991 Month
  • Microsoft Copilot Pro$20.001 Month
  • Office 365 Personal$69.991 Year
  • Office 365 Home$99.991 Year
  • Microsoft 365 Personal1 Month trial$99.991 Year
  • Microsoft 365 Family1 Month trial$129.991 Year

Questions

Is Pages free?
Pages is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Microsoft Word free?
Microsoft Word is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Pages or Microsoft Word?
Microsoft Word is rated higher. Pages averages 4.6 out of 5 from 551K ratings, while Microsoft Word averages 4.7 from 3M ratings.
Do Pages or Microsoft Word have ads?
Neither Pages nor Microsoft Word shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pages or Microsoft Word?
Pages ships an update every 3 months, and Microsoft Word weekly. Most recently, Pages was updated on September 24, 2026 and Microsoft Word on September 25, 2026.

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