Comparison

Annotate vs PDF Editor

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

Head to head
About

Annotate

Quickly enhance screenshots and images with a variety of tools for adding text, shapes, and effects. Features include auto-redaction for sensitive information and animated GIF support. Create polished visuals with layers, templates, and custom styles.

Highlights
  • 17 annotation tools
  • Animated GIF support
  • Auto-Redact sensitive info
  • Customizable styles and layers
  • Templates for quick reuse
  • Apple Pencil support
  • Shortcuts integration
Features
Read full description

Annotate helps you quickly mark up screenshots and images with clean, readable shapes and text - built for fast, polished results on iPhone and iPad. • 17 tools: Crop, Blur, Pixelate, Text, Number, Stamp, Rect, Oval, Arrow, Pen, Marker, Highlight, Loupe, Backdrop, Image, GIF, Watermark • Clean shapes and highlights, plus freehand pen and marker • Animated GIFs - bring your screenshots to life: search KLIPY right in the editor, drop a GIF on the canvas, and your export turns into a video. Powered by KLIPY • Text with font, size, alignment, and optional background • Number badges and SF Symbols stamps (with search) • Blur or pixelate areas, and use a loupe to magnify details • Auto-Redact: detect and hide sensitive info in one tap - credit cards, phone numbers, emails, license plates, and faces • Full control over style: stroke width, fill, outlines, shadow, opacity, configurable arrowheads, and more • Free rotation - turn shapes, text, stamps, images, GIFs, and more to any angle with a precision dial • ∞ Layers: one layer per annotation - select, reorder, and delete • Helpful extras: snapping for neat alignment, undo/redo, zoom to fit/100% • Apple Pencil ready - palm rejection kicks in automatically so the Pencil draws while your fingers still pan and pinch • Grow the canvas - add space on any edge to make room for callouts and shapes • Backdrop styles - frame your screenshot with gradients or solid colors, and choose whether the backdrop pads the canvas or fits inside it • Watermark - add text or a logo across the whole image (tiled) or in a corner to brand and protect your work • Templates - save a set of annotations, backdrop, and watermark, then reapply them to any image; positions adapt to the new aspect ratio • Start from Photos, Files, clipboard, or a blank canvas - or pick an iOS device preset (iPhone 17, iPad Pro, etc.) • Export and share fast (PNG, JPEG, or HEIC) • Shortcuts - run Auto-Redact and Framing from the Shortcuts app, Spotlight, and Siri Test free for the first 5 annotated images. Annotate is brought to you by the developer of Dropshare - the file sharing app for macOS and iOS.

About

PDF Editor

Features
Read full description

Document Assistant is the all-in-one PDF toolkit that lives on your device. Scan paper, sign contracts, edit, convert and organize documents in seconds. Your files are processed on your iPhone or iPad and never uploaded to a server. SCAN PAPER TO PDF • Capture documents with your camera, with automatic edge detection and cropping • Save as PDF, searchable PDF with text recognition (OCR), or images • OCR in multiple languages makes scanned text searchable and selectable SIGN AND MARK UP • Draw your signature once and place it on any page • Highlight, underline, add text, notes, shapes and freehand drawings • Redact to permanently black out sensitive information • Works beautifully with Apple Pencil on iPad 35+ PDF TOOLS • Organize: merge, split, remove or extract pages, reorder, rotate and duplicate • Optimize: compress PDFs, repair damaged files, run OCR • Convert to PDF: images, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, RTF, text and HTML • Convert from PDF: Word (DOCX), Excel (XLSX), text and JPG, or extract images • Edit: add watermarks, page numbers and rotations • Security: protect PDFs with a password or remove one you know IMAGE TOOLS • Compress, resize, crop and rotate images • Convert to and from JPG, PNG, HEIC, GIF and TIFF • Add watermarks, upscale images, blur faces automatically, or make a meme SMART FILE LIBRARY • Folders, favorites, recent files and instant search • Create new PDFs from ready-made templates • A 30-day Bin so nothing is lost by accident • Your library is also available in the Files app ASK YOUR DOCUMENTS • Chat with a PDF to get summaries, key points and answers • Runs on-device with Apple Intelligence on supported devices DESIGNED FOR EVERY SCREEN • iPhone, iPad and iPhone Duo, in portrait and landscape • Light and Dark Mode PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account needed. Your documents are processed on your device and are never uploaded. Privacy policy: https://digitalhole.github.io/DHPrivacy.html Standard Apple Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Annotate4 screens
PDF Editor4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Annotate at none against PDF Editor's shown. Annotate also leads on update cadence (every 5 days vs monthly). On price, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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. Annotate sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and PDF Editor sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Annotate ships an update every 5 days, PDF Editor monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and October 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Annotate versus PDF Editor: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAnnotatePDF Editor
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (8 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings8 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 5 days — betterMonthly
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS18.217.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size44 MB11 MB
Age rating12++4
DeveloperTimo JostenArima Jain

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Annotate

One-time1
  • Full Version$9.99
1 purchases

PDF Editor

One-time1
  • Unlock All Features$3.99

Questions

Is Annotate free?
Annotate is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is PDF Editor free?
PDF Editor is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Annotate or PDF Editor have ads?
PDF Editor shows ads; Annotate does not.
Which is updated more often, Annotate or PDF Editor?
Annotate ships an update every 5 days, and PDF Editor monthly. Most recently, Annotate was updated on October 31, 2026 and PDF Editor on October 28, 2026.

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