PDFsmith vs DraftPlanar
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
PDFsmith
Edit PDF text, convert scanned documents with OCR, and add annotations like signatures and highlights. Manage, merge, split, and protect your PDFs with ease. This app offers desktop-class PDF functionality on your mobile device.
- In-place text editing
- OCR for scanned documents
- Annotation tools (highlights, drawings, notes)
- E-signature functionality
- PDF merging, splitting, and rotation
- Image to PDF conversion
- Password protection
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PDFsmith gives you desktop-class PDF power on iPhone, without desktop complexity. Edit text in-place with smart alignment and font matching, so changes look natural. Turn scanned files into searchable, selectable documents with high-accuracy OCR. Add signatures, highlights, underlines, drawings, notes, and text boxes in seconds. Everything you need in one app: - Word-style PDF text editing - OCR for scanned documents - Highlight, underline, draw, erase, and annotate - E-sign documents fast - Merge, split, rotate, extract, and compress PDFs - Convert images to PDF and PDF to images - Add or remove password protection - Search, print, and share instantly From quick fixes to heavy multi-page files, PDFsmith is built to be fast and clean. SUBSCRIPTION INFO PDFsmith offers a free 7-day trial with full access to all features. After the trial, a subscription is required to continue using the app: • Monthly: $2.99/month • Yearly: $24.99/year ($2.08/month) • Lifetime: $89.99 (one-time purchase) Payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage and cancel subscriptions in your Apple ID account settings. Terms of Use: https://pdfsmith.io/#terms Privacy Policy: https://pdfsmith.io/#privacy
DraftPlanar
View and annotate large PDF documents offline on your Apple devices. Compare multiple plans side-by-side, measure dimensions, and mark up drawings with precision tools. Ideal for professionals and anyone working with complex documents.
- Offline PDF viewing
- Side-by-side document comparison
- Precision measurement tool
- Apple Pencil annotation
- Text search and OCR
- Layer control
- Paste reference images
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DraftPlanar is a hardware-accelerated PDF viewer and markup tool for iPad, iPhone, and Mac. Open large documents — blueprints, floor plans, technical drawings, or any PDF — and view them side by side on an infinite canvas with 60 FPS Metal-native performance. Unlike single-page PDF readers, DraftPlanar lets you lay out multiple documents at once. Place a floor plan next to a section detail. Compare two versions of a drawing. Pin reference images alongside your specs. Work the way professionals do — with everything visible, not buried in tabs. WHAT YOU CAN DO • View & Navigate Large PDFs Open 500+ page documents and zoom in at 60 FPS. Our Metal-native rendering pipeline keeps massive PDFs razor-sharp at any scale. Smooth panning and pinch-to-zoom, optimized for Apple Pencil and trackpad. • Measure & Dimension Calibrate your drawings to real-world scale. The Precision Measure tool snaps to path vertices, midpoints, and edges in the PDF's vector geometry — accurate to the line. • Annotate with Apple Pencil Draw, sketch, and redline with a GPU-accelerated pen tool that produces smooth, variable-width strokes. Non-destructive layers keep your annotations separate from the original document. Includes shapes, lasso selection, and a precision eraser. • Pin Notes & Bookmark Viewports Place visual Pins with rich notes, screenshots, or images directly on document coordinates. Save precise viewports to instantly teleport between distant sections of a large blueprint — perfect for construction punchlists and reading notes. • Search Text with Fuzzy Matching Find details instantly across hundreds of plans. DraftPlanar's spatial OCR engine reconstructs text layout from raw characters and scanned documents, then runs lightning-fast fuzzy searches — locate labels, dimensions, or notes even with partial matches. • Compare Document Versions Place two revisions side by side and spot differences. Perfect for reviewing plan updates, spec changes, or contractor submissions. • Control PDF Layers (OCG) Toggle individual layers in complex PDFs — electrical, plumbing, HVAC, or structural overlays. Filter and search layer names (supports regex) to isolate exactly what you need. • Import Markdown & Structured Content Drop Markdown files, Mermaid diagrams, Graphviz graphs, images, SVGs, or HTML onto your canvas. Everything renders as crisp, interactive vector objects automatically. FREE TO USE DraftPlanar's viewer is completely free — unlimited PDF, Markdown, and canvas imports with full 60 FPS hardware-accelerated rendering. No limits, no watermarks. Start viewing immediately. BUILT FOR PROFESSIONALS Architects, engineers, contractors, and project managers trust DraftPlanar for on-site plan review, takeoff measurements, and specification markup. But the app works just as well for anyone who needs a powerful PDF viewer — students, researchers, designers, or anyone working with large documents. 100% PRIVATE & OFFLINE - All processing happens on your device. No cloud uploads. No tracking. - Works without Wi-Fi or internet — perfect for job sites and travel. - No account required. Download and start working immediately. DraftPlanar Pro unlocks the full annotation toolkit (Pen, Shapes, Lasso, Custom Pins), Precision Measurement & Scale Calibration, Version Compare, Spatial OCR & Fuzzy Search, PDF Layer Toggling, Viewport Bookmarks, and Exporting. SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION • DraftPlanar Pro Annual — auto-renewable, 1 year • DraftPlanar Pro 3-Month Pass — non-renewing, 3 months • Payment will be charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase • Subscriptions automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period • You can manage and cancel subscriptions in your Account Settings Terms of Use: https://www.draftplanar.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://www.draftplanar.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: DraftPlanar at freemium against PDFsmith's subscription. PDFsmith's advantage is ratings volume (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases 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. PDFsmith sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and DraftPlanar sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $19.99 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 — 5.0 for PDFsmith against 5.0 for DraftPlanar. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 1 respectively.
| Parameter | PDFsmith | DraftPlanar |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (3 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 3 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | — | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Subscription | Freemium — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 28 MB | 72 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | James Dellamorte | Draft Planar LLC |
Customer experience
PDFsmith
DraftPlanar
In-app purchases
PDFsmith
- PDFsmith Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
- PDFsmith Pro Yearly$24.991 Year
- PDFsmith Pro$89.99
DraftPlanar
- Pro Monthly$19.991 Month
- Pro Annual$179.991 Year
- 3-Month Project Pass$49.99









