Comparison

PDF Max vs PDF Reader

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

Head to head
About

PDF Max

This app allows you to read, annotate, and sign PDF documents on your mobile device. You can mark up text, add handwritten notes, insert stamps, fill out forms, and manage PDF pages. It also offers robust file management and cloud integration for seamless access to your documents.

Highlights
  • Read and annotate PDFs
  • Fill and sign PDF forms
  • Handwriting and text markup
  • Manage PDF pages
  • Cloud storage integration
  • Voice annotations
Features
Read full description

PDF Max is a complete PDF editor for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, trusted by millions of people since 2012. From signing a form to building research you can verify, PDF Max helps you edit, annotate, organize, understand, study, protect, and deliver PDFs—all in one app. YOUR PDF. NOW A WORKSPACE. Collect important passages, highlights, images, tables, formulas, and notes as Cards beside your PDFs. Every Card remembers where it came from, so you can return to the original page whenever you need the full context. • Search, tag, connect, and arrange your Cards • Gather related Cards into named groups called Frames • Organize evidence from several PDFs without merging them • Compare passages side by side or view your evidence as an Outline or table • Present Frames or export your work to Markdown, PDF, or Word STUDY WHAT MATTERS Turn trusted Cards into Questions, practice a focused topic, or use scheduled Study for long-term review. Track your Progress, study text and visual material, and return to the supporting PDF whenever an answer needs more context. On supported devices, Apple Intelligence can draft Questions for you to review before saving. EDIT, ANNOTATE, FILL, AND SIGN • Edit existing text, typography, images, links, shapes, and tables • Add, replace, crop, align, rotate, and arrange content • Remove image backgrounds and automatically crop subjects • Highlight, underline, strike through, draw, stamp, and comment • Add text boxes, callouts, notes, shapes, and threaded comments • Complete forms, find missing required fields, and add reusable signatures • Create and edit text, checkbox, radio, dropdown, signature, date, and image fields • Permanently redact text, areas, pages, or search results SCAN, READ, AND UNDERSTAND • Scan paper with automatic capture, edge detection, cleanup, crop, filters, and page reordering • Make scans searchable with optional OCR • Turn selected images into polished PDFs • Reflow fixed or scanned pages into a comfortable reading column • Keep figures beside the text they explain • Customize reading theme, typography, spacing, margins, and alignment • Translate supported languages and listen with on-device Read Aloud • Keep selected passages and useful context with Focus View VOICE NOTES THAT STAY ON THE PAGE • Place and play audio notes anywhere in a PDF • Create searchable on-device transcripts when the required speech model is available MAKE FLAT FORMS FILLABLE • Detect likely text, checkbox, and signature fields in flat or printed forms • Review every detected field before applying it • Use Form Assist to review suggested answers from your encrypted profile EVERY PDF TOOL IN ONE PLACE • Reorder, rotate, insert, duplicate, replace, extract, merge, split, or delete pages • Compress PDFs while preserving selectable text and vector graphics • Resize mixed pages to standard paper sizes • Add page numbers, N of M, Roman numerals, letters, or Bates numbering • Add or remove an open password • Create and edit PDF outlines and bookmarks • Recognize text with OCR and convert Word documents to PDF • Create PDFs from paper, journal, planner, graph, and project templates • Present PDF pages or Workspace Frames full screen • Save, print, flatten, share, or export the finished result Join more than 25 million downloads worldwide and move from document to outcome with PDF Max. Some advanced features require PDF Max PREMIUM. PDF MAX PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION Payment will be charged to your Apple Account when the purchase is confirmed. Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current subscription period. You can manage or cancel your subscription in your Apple Account settings. Any unused portion of a free trial will be forfeited when a subscription is purchased, where applicable. Privacy Policy: https://mobeera.ai/privacy Terms: https://mobeera.ai/terms

About

PDF Reader

This app offers a superior PDF reading experience with its innovative Liquid Mode, which optimizes documents for mobile screens. It also provides robust tools for annotating, signing, managing, and sharing your PDF files, catering to both work and study needs.

Highlights
  • Liquid Mode for optimized mobile reading
  • Annotation tools (pencil, text, highlighting)
  • Handwritten signature insertion
  • File management (move, merge, copy, delete)
  • Cloud service integration (Wondershare, iCloud)
  • Create blank PDFs and folders
Features
Read full description

PDFelement - PDF Reader is a PDF reader using the latest technology. The newly connected Liquid Mode function allows you to enjoy the best reading experience. In addition, there are various annotation tools, file management, signature, Various functions such as cloud services can meet your PDF needs in work and study. PDF VIEWER • Liquid Mode gives you the best PDF reading experience • Star files to find them quickly • Easily locate recently accessed files in the "Recent" list. • Enter the page number to navigate to the desired page for viewing LIQUID MODE • Get the best PDF Reading experience with Liquid Mode • PDF document fully fits the mobile phone screen, no need to zoom in and out repeatedly. • Easily adjust brightness, font size,style, and spacing. ANNOTATE • Using Pencil to annotate like writing on the paper • Add text annotations, freely modify the text and background, border colors, choose the appropriate font and font size. • Supports many annotating tools like highlighting, underlining, squiggly lines, or strikethroughs. MANAGE • Move, merge, copy or delete files SIGNATURE • Enables handwritten signatures to be inserted anywhere within the document, while also offering the ability to zoom in and out for greater flexibility. • Built-in commonly used stamps CREATE • Quickly create completely blank PDF documents • Creat blank folders. SHARE • Sharing document content with others is just a click away with capture feature. • Select sentence(s) or pragraph(s) to share CLOUD SERVICE • PDF Reader supports uploading or downloading docs via computer, Wondershare document cloud and iCloud. Please note that this app only supports editing native PDF files. It does not support editing scanned or raster PDF. If you find you cannot edit text in PDF, please check if it is scanned PDF. Thank you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Need HELP? Please contact us! We'll feedback to you ASAP. Email: pdfelement@wondershare.com Support Center: http://support.wondershare.com Forum: http://forum.pdf.wondershare.com Official Website: https://pdf.wondershare.com If you think this App helps you, your positive review in the App Store would be much appreciated.

Screenshots

PDF Max4 screens
PDF Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: PDF Reader at 77% against PDF Max's 35%. PDF Reader also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 10) and ratings volume (3.9K vs 1.2K). PDF Max's advantage is rating (4.5 vs 4.3). On price, update cadence, 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. PDF Max sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per 7 days. PDF Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

PDF Max holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1.2K and 3.9K respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 35% of PDF Max's written reviews are positive against 77% of PDF Reader's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

PDF Max ships an update monthly, PDF Reader every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
PDF Max versus PDF Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPDF MaxPDF Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (1.2K ratings) — better4.3 (3.9K ratings)
Positive reviews35.4% of reviews76.7% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1.2K3.9K — better
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS18.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size266 MB173 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMobeeraWondershare Technology (Hunan) Co.,Ltd.

Customer experience

PDF Max

All ratings1,177 ratings
Positive87.9%
Neutral2.5%
Negative9.5%
Written reviews189 reviews
Positive35.4%
Neutral7.4%
Negative57.1%

PDF Reader

All ratings3,923 ratings
Positive83.1%
Neutral3.2%
Negative13.7%
Written reviews1,582 reviews
Positive76.7%
Neutral6.1%
Negative17.2%

User reviews

PDF Max

From 1.2K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Easy to use
  • 👍 Helpful for studies and work
  • 🚀 Fast and efficient
  • 👍 Great for annotating PDFs

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes frequently
  • 🔒 Unreliable cloud sync
  • 💰 Paywall for basic features
  • 🐛 Buggy updates
  • 👎 Poor customer support

PDF Reader

From 3.9K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 🚀 Efficient PDF editing
  • 💡 Useful annotation tools
  • 🚀 Convenient for students/professionals
  • 👍 Great value for free app

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes and glitches
  • 🔒 Privacy concerns with account requirement
  • 👎 Unintuitive user interface
  • 🐛 Unreliable saving/syncing
  • 👎 Limited functionality compared to paid version

Bugs and requests

PDF Max

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Disappearing documents and annotations
  • Incompatibility with newer devices
  • Crashes on launch
  • Unreliable file saving

Requested features

5 requests
  • Dark mode option
  • Ability to edit/delete annotations
  • Better integration with cloud storage
  • Split-screen viewing for PDFs
  • Improved handwriting recognition

PDF Reader

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Text boxes appearing randomly
  • Inability to select/edit text in some PDFs
  • Scrolling issues and page loading delays
  • Incompatibility with certain PDF formats

Requested features

5 requests
  • Ability to edit text formatting (font, size, color)
  • Support for multiple open documents
  • Improved Apple Pencil integration
  • Bookmark/favorite feature for frequently used PDFs
  • Expanded cloud storage integration (OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.)

In-app purchases

10 purchases

PDF Max

Subscriptions3
  • Premium Subscription (1 week)$1.997 Days
  • One year premium$34.991 Year
  • Yearly Onboarding Offer7 Days trial$34.991 Year
One-time7
  • Standard Annotating Package$0.99
  • Cloud Access Package$1.99
  • Advanced Annotating Package$3.99
Show 4 more
  • Form Filling Package$3.99
  • Pro Package$4.99
  • Premium Package (Update)$4.99
  • Premium Package (New User)$9.99
None

PDF Reader

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is PDF Max free?
PDF Max is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is PDF Reader free?
PDF Reader is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, PDF Max or PDF Reader?
PDF Max is rated higher. PDF Max averages 4.5 out of 5 from 1.2K ratings, while PDF Reader averages 4.3 from 3.9K ratings.
Do PDF Max or PDF Reader have ads?
Neither PDF Max nor PDF Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, PDF Max or PDF Reader?
PDF Max ships an update monthly, and PDF Reader every 2 months. Most recently, PDF Max was updated on September 24, 2026 and PDF Reader on September 23, 2026.

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