Comparison

PDF Max vs Elegant PDF

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

Elegant PDF

Transform paper documents into digital files with this intuitive mobile scanner. Quickly capture images, edit PDFs, and manage your files efficiently with batch operations and custom sorting. Save time on document management for work and life.

Highlights
  • Photo scanning with camera
  • Save images or PDF files locally
  • Easy editing and modification
  • Batch file operations
  • Custom file sorting
Features
Read full description

Our PDF app is a simple and easy-to-use product that allows you to scan your documents anytime and anywhere with your phone, transforming paper files into electronic files, greatly facilitating file management. Our Advantages: 1. Our photo scanning function is very powerful. You can quickly take photos using the camera in the app at any time, and then save the images or PDF files on your local device. 2. Easy to operate. We don't have complex designs, everything is just for you to edit and modify PDF files more quickly, saving you time. 3. Support batch operations. You can select multiple files simultaneously for efficient file processing. 4. The custom sorting function allows you to sort files in your preferred way, such as by file name, creation time, etc Elegant PDF is a product carefully crafted by our team, and we are willing to save time for your work and life! If you have any questions, you can contact us through the official website.

Screenshots

PDF Max4 screens
Elegant PDF4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Elegant PDF at none against PDF Max's 10. Elegant PDF also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 18.0). PDF Max's advantage is ratings volume (1.2K vs 8). 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

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. Elegant PDF asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for PDF Max against 4.4 for Elegant PDF. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: PDF Max has 1.2K ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

PDF Max ships an update monthly, Elegant PDF every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 22, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
PDF Max versus Elegant PDF: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPDF MaxElegant PDF
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (1.2K ratings) — better4.4 (8 ratings)
Positive reviews35.4% of reviews—
Number of ratings1.2K — better8
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS18.013.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size266 MB28 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperMobeeraNUMBER THREE TECH LIMITED

Customer experience

PDF Max

All ratings1,176 ratings
Positive87.8%
Neutral2.6%
Negative9.5%
Written reviews189 reviews
Positive35.4%
Neutral7.4%
Negative57.1%

Elegant PDF

All ratings8 ratings
Positive87.5%
Neutral0.0%
Negative12.5%

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

Elegant PDF

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

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

Elegant PDF

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is PDF Max free?
PDF Max is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Elegant PDF free?
Elegant PDF is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, PDF Max or Elegant PDF?
PDF Max is rated higher. PDF Max averages 4.5 out of 5 from 1.2K ratings, while Elegant PDF averages 4.4 from 8 ratings.
Do PDF Max or Elegant PDF have ads?
Neither PDF Max nor Elegant PDF shows ads.
Which is updated more often, PDF Max or Elegant PDF?
PDF Max ships an update monthly, and Elegant PDF every 3 weeks. Most recently, PDF Max was updated on October 22, 2026 and Elegant PDF on October 24, 2026.

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