Comparison

PDF Studio vs FreeBeam

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

Head to head
About

PDF Studio

Features
Read full description

Every PDF tool you need โ€” 100% on your device. PDF Studio reads, edits, scans, converts, signs and protects PDFs with no account, no cloud upload and no tracking. Your files never leave your iPhone, iPad or Mac. And it's a one-time purchase โ€” no subscription. SCAN & CREATE โ€ข Scan documents with automatic edge detection โ€ข Turn photos or typed text into clean PDFs โ€ข Make scans searchable with on-device OCR EDIT & ORGANIZE โ€ข Merge, split, reorder, rotate and delete pages โ€ข Compress to a target file size โ€ข Crop, add margins, page numbers and watermarks CONVERT โ€ข PDF to Word, plain text or images โ€” and back FILL, SIGN & PROTECT โ€ข Fill forms and sign by hand or with a saved signature โ€ข Build fillable forms and extract form data to CSV โ€ข Password-protect, unlock and permanently redact โ€ข Certify & seal a document and verify it later โ€” fully offline ON-DEVICE AI โ€ข Summarize, chat with and translate a PDF โ€” nothing is uploaded MEASURE & MORE โ€ข Distance, area and angle with scale โ€ข Beautiful on iPhone, iPad and Mac, with iCloud sync for your own library WHY PDF STUDIO โ€ข Private by design โ€” everything runs on your device โ€ข Pay once, own it forever โ€” no subscription required โ€ข No ads, no account, no data collection PDF Studio Pro unlocks every tool with a single purchase or an optional subscription. Terms of Use (EULA): https://birsoftware.com/terms.html

About

FreeBeam

Read full description

Measure and mark up construction drawings on site, in your hand, at the scale the drawing was drawn to. Set the scale once and every length, area and angle you take is real. Nothing you open ever leaves your phone. FreeBeam works on the PDFs you already have. Open a plan from email, from Files, from anywhere iOS can share to, set the scale from the drawing's own dimension string or pick a standard one, and start measuring. Lengths, areas, continuous runs and angles come straight off the sheet. Snapping catches the drawing's real geometry - endpoints, intersections, perpendiculars - so a measurement lands on the line rather than near it, and the loupe shows you exactly where the point is going before you commit it. Mark up as you go. Text, arrows, clouds, dimensions and freehand, in the colours and weights you choose. Everything is editable afterwards: select one item or several, move them, restyle them, undo and redo your way back through the work. Copy and paste markup between drawings. Export the result as a sharp, real PDF. Not a photograph of your drawing - the original vector sheet with your markup on top, so it prints and zooms the way the source did, and anyone can open it. FreeBeam Pro, a one-off purchase with no subscription, adds the rest: unlimited drawings, exports with no watermark, and the tools that take it past measuring. Lay one drawing over another in colour to read a revision at a glance, and flatten the pair into a single sharp sheet. Join several drawings into one document, in the order you choose. Count and tally items by type for a takeoff. Set a datum and read coordinates off the plan, rotate a sheet to site north, and take bearings and distances between points. Built for the people who actually carry drawings: surveyors, site engineers, estimators, builders and setting-out crews. It runs on an iPhone in a pocket and on an iPad on a tailgate, and it works with no signal, because everything happens on the device. Nothing is collected. No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no tracking, no cloud. Your drawings, your markup and your measurements stay on your phone, which matters when the sheet in your hand is a confidential tender. A sample drawing is included, in metric or in feet and inches, with dimensions printed on it you can check your measurements against. Questions or problems: freebeam.support@gmail.com

Screenshots

PDF Studio4 screens
FreeBeam4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: FreeBeam at 15.0 against PDF Studio's 17.0. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. PDF Studio sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per year and FreeBeam sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

Scorecard1 real difference ยท 5 level
PDF Studio versus FreeBeam: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPDF StudioFreeBeam
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyWeeklyโ€”
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS17.015.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size20 MB77 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperBirkan AksoyThomas Blaxland

In-app purchases

2 purchases

PDF Studio

Subscriptions1
  • PDF Studio Pro$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • PDF Studio Pro (Lifetime)$24.99
1 purchases

FreeBeam

One-time1
  • FreeBeam Pro$29.99

Questions

Is PDF Studio free?
PDF Studio is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is FreeBeam free?
FreeBeam is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do PDF Studio or FreeBeam have ads?
Neither PDF Studio nor FreeBeam shows ads.

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