Folio vs PDF Studio
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
Folio
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Every PDF tool you need ā and not one byte of your document ever leaves your device. Online PDF tools are convenient until you read the fine print. Your contract, your payslip, your client's financial statement ā uploaded to a server you don't control, retained for purposes you didn't agree to, mined for data you didn't consent to share. Folio makes that trade-off unnecessary. Folio is a full-featured PDF toolkit that runs entirely on your iPhone and iPad. No network connection. No account. No cloud sync. No analytics. Your files go in, your files come out ā nothing in between. WHAT YOU CAN DO Organise ā Merge multiple PDFs into one document ā Split a PDF into separate files by page range ā Reorder, rotate, or delete individual pages Reduce & Prepare ā Compress PDFs to shrink file size without rebuilding content ā Add watermarks or page numbers ā Flatten form fields and annotations into a fixed document Convert (best-effort, on-device) ā PDF to images: export pages as JPG or PNG ā Images to PDF: combine photos into a single document ā PDF to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint ā conversion is handled entirely on-device using Apple's document frameworks; complex layouts may not reproduce with pixel-perfect fidelity, but no file is ever sent to a remote service to achieve it Protect ā Password-protect a PDF with your chosen password ā Remove password protection from a document you own Fill & Sign ā Fill text fields in PDFs ā Add your signature to any document Extract & Search ā OCR: turn a scanned or photographed document into searchable, selectable text using Apple's on-device Vision framework ā Extract all text from a PDF for copying or reference ZERO NETWORK DESIGN Folio ships with no networking capability. It cannot phone home. It cannot upload a file even if it wanted to. Every operation ā compression, conversion, OCR, signing ā runs on your device's own processor using Apple's built-in frameworks. This is not a marketing claim; it is a technical constraint we built in by design. This matters most when you are handling documents that should never leave your hands: NDAs, medical records, legal filings, HR documents, financial statements, tax returns. NO ACCOUNT REQUIRED Open the app. Use every feature. Close the app. No sign-up screen. No email address. No subscription prompt. No paywall on any v1.0 feature. BUILT FOR PEOPLE WHO HANDLE SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS Folio is built for lawyers, accountants, HR professionals, and anyone else who regularly works with documents that are nobody else's business ā and for anyone who is simply tired of feeding their files to free websites that profit from what they read. Your documents are yours. Folio keeps them that way.
PDF Studio
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PDF Studio is the all-in-one PDF app that works entirely on your device. No account, no ads, no tracking ā your files never leave your iPhone or iPad. READ & MARK UP ⢠Fast, smooth reader with search, bookmarks and a page thumbnail grid ⢠Highlight, underline, strike through and draw with Apple Pencil or your finger ⢠Add text, shapes, arrows, sticky notes and a date stamp ⢠Sign with your finger and reuse saved signatures ⢠Custom stamps, Night and Sepia modes, a clean Reading View and Read Aloud SCAN & CREATE ⢠Scan documents with the camera and clean up the edges ⢠Turn photos into a PDF ⢠Make scans searchable with on-device OCR CONVERT ⢠PDF to Word, plain text or images ⢠Images to PDF ⢠Grayscale a PDF to save ink and shrink the file ORGANIZE ⢠Merge, split, reorder, rotate, insert and delete pages ⢠Compress, and batch-compress or merge many PDFs at once ⢠Crop margins, extract images and add Bates numbers ⢠Compare two PDFs side by side and highlight what changed PROTECT ⢠Add or remove a password ⢠Permanently redact text ā even every match of a word at once ⢠Watermarks and page numbers YOUR LIBRARY ⢠Star favorites for quick access and search every PDF at once ⢠Fill in forms ⢠Save to Files / iCloud Drive, plus a Home Screen widget for one-tap scanning ⢠Back up your whole library to one file and restore it on another device 100% ON-DEVICE PRIVACY Everything happens on your device. PDF Studio collects no data ā no ads, no tracking, ever. That's the whole point. PDF Studio Pro unlocks every tool with no limits. Every Pro feature works 3 times free ā upgrade yearly or once for lifetime. Terms of Use (EULA): https://birsoftware.com/terms.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Folio at none against PDF Studio's 2. On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. PDF Studio sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per year. Folio asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Folio | PDF Studio |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | ā | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No ā better | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 ā better | 18.0 |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 1 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Vuyo Nkadimeng | Birkan Aksoy |
In-app purchases
Folio
No in-app purchases
PDF Studio
- PDF Studio Pro$9.991 Year
- PDF Studio Pro (Lifetime)$24.99









