PDF Pro vs PDF Archiver
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
PDF Pro
Edit, annotate, and read PDF documents on your iPhone and iPad. Highlight text, add notes, shapes, voice recordings, and photos. Search your entire PDF library, fill out forms, and sign documents.
- Edit and annotate PDFs
- Highlight text and add notes
- Embed audio and photo annotations
- Full-text search of PDF library
- Fill out and sign PDF forms
- Organize PDFs with folders and tags
- Import from cloud storage
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PDF Pro lets you read, edit and annotate your PDF documents directly on your iPhone and iPad. Highlight text, take notes, embed shapes or draw with your finger. You can even embed voice recordings or photo annotations. Full-text-search your entire PDF library with just a single tap. Above all PDF Pro comes with full-featured PDF form and signature support. Key-Features At A Glance: • POWERFUL SEARCH: ∙ Full-text-search your entire PDF library. ∙ Search inside specific documents with easy navigation through the search results. ∙ Look-up selected text directly on Wikipedia or in the included dictionaries. • FILE-MANAGEMENT: ∙ Group your PDFs in folders and tag them with colorful labels. ∙ Import PDFs from your Dropbox®, Microsoft OneDrive® or Google Drive®. ∙ Add PDFs via USB or WiFi. ∙ Open E-Mail attachments. • CLEAR VIEW: ∙ Easily browse through all your annotations. ∙ Full PDF outline support. You can even search the outline. ∙ Get an overview of all your bookmarked or annotated pages just with a single tap. • SHARE and PRINT: ∙ Easily share your annotated documents with your friends or co-workers. ∙ Print your annotated and edited PDFs. ∙ You can even share or print single pages of a document. • HIGH SPEED and STABILITY: ∙ Rapid viewing of PDF documents. ∙ Smooth display of very large PDF files. • NIGHT MODE: ∙ Makes reading in the dark much easier on the eyes. • SECURITY: ∙ Support for password-protected PDFs • AND MUCH MORE... Premium Features and Premium Offer include: • ANNOTATIONS and NOTES: ∙ Highlight text, take notes or draw with your finger. ∙ Powerful shape editor for arrows, rectangles, circles, lines and much more. ∙ Embed audio and photo annotations into your PDFs. ∙ Use predefined stamps or create your own. • DOCUMENT EDITOR: ∙ Create new pages. ∙ Export pages or merge them into existing documents. ∙ Reorder, rotate and delete pages. • CONTENT EDITOR: • Modify the existing content of PDF documents. • MULTITASKING: ∙ Work with multiple PDFs at a time. ∙ Copy and paste annotations, shapes, images or text from one PDF document into another. • FORM SUPPORT: ∙ Just fill out your PDF form, sign it with your handwritten signature and you are ready to send it via E-Mail or print it via AirPrint®. A monthly or annual subscription is required to get access to all premium features and premium offer. --- Subscriptions automatically renew monthly or yearly depending on your plan unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period. Plans are priced at $3.99USD monthly and $24.99USD yearly (pricing may vary in countries other than the U.S.). Payment will be charged to your App Store Account at confirmation of purchase. To avoid automatic renewal, you must turn off auto-renew at least 24 hours before your subscription ends. You can turn off auto-renew at any time from your App Store Account Settings. Terms of Use: https://pdf-pro.net/terms-of-service/ Privacy Policy: https://pdf-pro.net/privacy-policy/
PDF Archiver
Digitally organize your documents by scanning and tagging them. This app uses on-device text recognition and iCloud Drive for secure, private storage and easy retrieval.
- 100% Open Source
- Intelligent Text Recognition (OCR)
- On-device text processing (no cloud)
- iCloud Drive synchronization
- Customizable search by tag and description
- Document naming convention for easy searching
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An archive that outlasts the app. Your documents are PDFs in folders sorted by year — with the date, a description and tags written into the filename. Readable on any machine, with or without this app. HOW IT WORKS • Point your iPhone at the page. The scan lands in your inbox, cropped and straight. • Apple Intelligence suggests the date, a description and tags — on your device. • Check them, fix what's off, save. The document is renamed and moved to your archive. • Find it again in PDF Archiver, in Spotlight, in the Finder, or in whatever file manager you happen to open — because the search terms are part of the filename. Already have PDFs? Drop them in — from your scanner, a mail attachment, your downloads folder. WHY PDF ARCHIVER • Everything stays on your device. Text recognition and suggestions run locally. There is no PDF Archiver server. • No account. No sign-up, no password, no email address. • You choose where files live: iCloud Drive, a local folder, or any folder you point the app at. • No lock-in. Your archive is a folder of PDFs. Copy it to a backup drive, a NAS, a Windows machine — it stays readable. • Open source. The code is on GitHub. • A person answers. Questions go to one developer, not a ticket queue. Most get a reply within a few hours. ON EVERY DEVICE iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro. Widgets show what's still untagged. Shortcuts automate what you do often. The share sheet takes documents from any other app. BUILT SINCE 2018 First release in February 2018, still shipping updates today. One developer, eight years. "The Mac app uses a simple file name convention, which simply notes keywords, data and descriptions in the file name of the documents and can therefore be used largely independently of the operating system, cloud provider and Mac or PC application." — iFun TRY IT, THEN BUY IT Two weeks free, no account and no credit card. After the trial you can subscribe — or buy the lifetime licence and keep the app. Prices are listed at the top of this page. Cancel whenever you like. Your documents stay readable either way — they are just PDFs in a folder. QUESTIONS Answers to the most common ones: pdf-archiver.io/faq Write to us: support@pdf-archiver.io The code is at github.com/PDF-Archiver/PDF-Archiver Privacy policy: pdf-archiver.io/privacy Terms of use: pdf-archiver.io/terms
Screenshots
Verdict
PDF Pro and PDF Archiver both sit at 4.7 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of PDF Archiver's written reviews are positive against 60% of PDF Pro's. PDF Pro's advantage is ratings volume (6.9K vs 9). On price, rating, update cadence and ads 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 Pro sells 12 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and PDF Archiver sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for PDF Pro against 4.6 for PDF Archiver. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: PDF Pro has 6.9K ratings behind it against 9, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 60% of PDF Pro's written reviews are positive against 100% of PDF Archiver's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | PDF Pro | PDF Archiver |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (6.9K ratings) — better | 4.6 (9 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 60.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 6.9K — better | 9 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Subscription | Subscription |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 97 MB | 32 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Dominic Rodemer | Julian Kahnert |
Customer experience
PDF Pro
PDF Archiver
Bugs and requests
PDF Pro
Reported bugs
5 issues- Annotations and highlights randomly disappearing
- Compatibility issues with newer iOS versions
- Corrupted PDF files after editing
- Slow performance on older devices
- Inconsistent behavior when switching between PDFs
Requested features
5 requests- Improved bookmarking and note-taking
- Seamless iCloud/cloud storage integration
- Customizable keyboard shortcuts
- Advanced text editing and OCR capabilities
- Better organization and folder management
PDF Archiver
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
PDF Pro
- Offer - Monthly - macOS3 Days trial$1.991 Month
- Offer - Monthly - iOS3 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Premium - Monthly - iOS3 Days trial$3.991 Month
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- Premium - Monthly - macOS3 Days trial$4.991 Month
- Offer - Annual - iOS3 Days trial$12.991 Year
- Offer - Annual - macOS3 Days trial$22.991 Year
- Premium - Annual - iOS3 Days trial$24.991 Year
- Offer - macOS + iOS3 Days trial$24.991 Year
- Offer - iOS + macOS3 Days trial$29.991 Year
- Premium - Annual - macOS3 Days trial$44.991 Year
- Premium - iOS + macOS3 Days trial$49.991 Year
- Premium - macOS + iOS3 Days trial$49.991 Year
PDF Archiver
- Monthly Subscription14 Days trial$1.991 Month
- Yearly Subscription14 Days trial$6.991 Year
- Lifetime License$26.99









