PDF Expert vs Cloud Scanner
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
PDF Expert
This app allows you to edit, annotate, fill out forms, and convert PDF documents. It offers AI-powered summarization and analysis, along with tools to merge, sign, and protect your files. Work seamlessly across Apple devices with a user-friendly interface.
- Edit PDF text and images
- Annotate and highlight PDFs
- Fill out PDF forms
- Convert files to and from PDF
- AI-powered summarization and analysis
- Merge and combine PDF files
- Sign documents with e-signatures
Read full descriptionHide full description
PDF Expert is a fast and easy PDF app to read, annotate, fill and sign PDF forms, convert files to PDF, and merge, split or compress documents – all in one intuitive app for iPhone, iPad, Mac & Vision Pro. Read PDF files with comfort, highlight and mark up text, fill out forms, sign contracts, create and convert PDFs, and summarize long documents in seconds with AI-powered tools. Unlock unlimited possibilities with PDF Expert Premium and work across all your Apple devices. "PDF Expert is one of my must-have iPad apps and a desktop-class PDF reader." – MacStories "The best app for managing, editing, and reading PDFs on your iPad." – The Sweet Setup ▶ WITH PDF EXPERT, YOU CAN: READ PDFs - PDF reader with Day, Night, and Sepia modes for comfortable reading anytime - Scroll PDFs vertically or horizontally and search text in any document - Open and view PDF files from email, web, Files, or any app via the Share menu - Read PDFs out loud with Text to Speech ANNOTATE AND MARK UP PDFs - Highlight, underline, and strike through text in your PDFs - Mark up documents with pen, shapes, text, notes, and comments - Add stamps such as Approved or Confidential - Record your voice and add audio notes to PDFs FILL AND SIGN PDF FORMS - Fill out PDF forms with text fields, checkboxes, and radio buttons - Sign PDF documents in seconds – draw your signature or add it from an image - Save your signature to sign contracts, agreements, invoices, and applications faster - Fill, sign, and send forms right from your iPhone – no printing or scanning needed - Supports all major form formats, including AcroForms and static XFA forms ***PREMIUM FEATURES*** EDIT PDFs - Edit text directly in a PDF – just as you would in a Word document - Add, replace, and resize images in your PDFs - Add links to other pages or websites - Add outlines to navigate large PDFs CREATE AND CONVERT PDFs - Create PDFs from Word files, images, and other documents - Convert Word to PDF, JPG to PDF, and PNG to PDF in seconds - Convert PDF to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPG, PNG, and TXT MERGE, SPLIT AND ORGANIZE PDFs - Merge and combine multiple PDF files into one - Split PDFs and extract pages into a new file - Add, delete, rotate, and reorder pages with thumbnail preview COMPRESS PDFs - Compress PDFs to reduce file size for email and sharing - Shrink large PDF files to save space on your device SUMMARIZE PDFs WITH AI – PDF COPILOT - List Main Points – get key takeaways from any PDF - Summarize – get concise summaries of entire PDFs or annotations - Ask Anything – find details with AI answers and references - Explain – get instant explanations of words or phrases PROTECT YOUR FILES - Password-protect PDF Expert - Redact – permanently black out sensitive information WORK WITH SCANNED DOCUMENTS - Open scanned PDFs to fill out, sign, annotate, and share CONSTRUCTION TOOLS - Scale and measure drawings with the Measure tab - Polygon, polyline, and redline tools MORE FEATURES - Customizable toolbar - Presentation Mode - Print and share PDFs via email or cloud ONE ACCOUNT FOR ALL YOUR APPLE DEVICES One Premium subscription covers PDF Expert on iPhone, iPad, and Mac – no need to buy versions separately. Read more about our terms and conditions here: https://pdfexpert.com/privacy https://pdfexpert.com/terms Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at http://readdle.com/contact
Cloud Scanner
Effortlessly scan and store receipts, documents, and photos. Scans are automatically cropped and can be saved locally or synced across devices via the cloud. Share your documents easily as PDF or ZIP files.
- Scan documents, receipts, and photos
- Cloud storage and cross-device sync
- Automatic image cropping
- Share scans as PDF or ZIP
- Multi-page document creation
Read full descriptionHide full description
With this scanner app, you can scan and store receipts, documents, photos. Scans are saved on the device and also on the cloud. *Unlimited - No limit on any number of scans you can do with this app. This app will be free for ever. *Never lose a receipt or a document: All scans will be saved on the cloud and you can sync across devices. *Auto crop feature: Cloud scanner will automatically detect the paper in the picture and crop the image to delete noise in the image *Easy share: Share your scans by email as PDF or ZIP file *Multi page support: Create a multipage scan document
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: PDF Expert at 4.7 against Cloud Scanner's 4.0. PDF Expert also leads on ratings volume (217K vs 18) and chart position (#76 vs unranked). Cloud Scanner's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 16.0). On price, update cadence, ads and device support 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. PDF Expert sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Cloud Scanner asks for nothing beyond the download.
PDF Expert holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: PDF Expert has 217K ratings behind it against 18, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | PDF Expert | Cloud Scanner |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (217K ratings) — better | 4.0 (18 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 45.2% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 217K — better | 18 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Fortnightly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #76 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 301 MB | 57 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Readdle Technologies Limited | kishore papineni |
Customer experience
PDF Expert
Cloud Scanner
Bugs and requests
PDF Expert
Reported bugs
4 issues- Corrupted PDFs after editing
- Sync issues with cloud storage providers
- Unexpected loss of annotations and edits
- Unreliable performance on older iPad models
Requested features
5 requests- Improved palm rejection for Apple Pencil
- Customizable toolbar and annotation presets
- Better integration with other productivity apps
- More flexible file management and organization
- Ability to create fillable PDF forms
Cloud Scanner
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
PDF Expert
- PDF Expert Premium Trial7 Days trial$9.991 Month
- PDF Expert Premium No Trial$9.991 Month
- PDF Expert for Education7 Days trial$39.991 Year
Show 5 moreShow fewer
- PDF Expert Premium7 Days trial2 variants$49.991 Year
- PDF Expert Premium New7 Days trial$49.991 Year
- PDF Expert Premium Existing7 Days trial$49.991 Year
- PDF Expert – Premium Editing1 Year trial$49.991 Year
- PDF Expert Mac & iOS7 Days trial$79.991 Year
- PDF Expert Basic$9.99
Cloud Scanner
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is PDF Expert free?
Is Cloud Scanner free?
Which has better reviews, PDF Expert or Cloud Scanner?
Do PDF Expert or Cloud Scanner have ads?
Which is updated more often, PDF Expert or Cloud Scanner?
Other comparisons















