Browsers can view PDF files, but annotating them is an entirely different ball game. Chrome cannot do much beyond basic viewing, and Firefox has some level of annotation support by adding signatures. If you need to do anything beyond it, you can either purchase an Adobe Acrobat subscription or look for free web tools or self-hosted tools. I had some important tasks related to a PDF document of some files related to land records, and free tools couldn't do much. I purchased the Adobe Acrobat subscription for that task, but later realized that a self-hosted PDF editor is a far better option for me.

Adobe isn't a bad product, but its subscriptions suit users who interact with numerous PDFs on a daily basis. I didn't find the idea of paying $15–20 useful when my use case was erratic and unpredictable. So, I switched to BentoPDF, a lightweight tool that solves most of my problems, doesn't need a subscription, and works locally.

Ditching Adobe Acrobat was necessary

Burning money for little gains

I view and edit PDFs when necessary, but that's not an everyday thing. Adobe Acrobat can do everything I want to change in a PDF file, but the convenience comes at an expensive monthly cost. I wouldn't mind paying for it if I used it daily, and it was an integral part of my workflow.

Another problem with Adobe Acrobat is that I deal with personal files, which can be purchase records, land paperwork, and payment items. If it were 2016, I would hastily jump on the trend and not think twice about uploading files to a server. While Adobe Acrobat doesn't impose cloud usage, I still try to avoid the suggestions to upload everything to my account.

So, I needed a free PDF editor that could measure up to Adobe Acrobat features to some extent and work locally without requiring a personal account. I've used Stirling PDF in the past, but that was a little heavy on resources, and I wanted something that could work with minimum system resources. BentoPDF is an excellent alternative as it ditches the heavy architecture and tracking practices of Stirling PDF while offering ample PDF-related features.

BentoPDF is feature-rich

Not a simple tool

Since I wanted to replace Adobe Acrobat, I was looking for a tool that offered something more beyond the basic options. I already use OmniTools, a great toolkit that solves most of my file conversion problems, including media, documents, and files. It has a PDF section that is more of a bare-minimum toolkit rather than a comprehensive one.

BentoPDF has a different focus, and it only caters to PDF tasks. So, its range is quite big compared to a select few options present in OmniTools. I can do the most basic tasks, like splitting or merging a PDF, or I can go to very advanced levels to make a PDF searchable and copyable using OCR PDF. Adobe restricts the free tier to just basic PDF viewing, sharing, and signing, most of which is already possible in a browser. The app is so persistent that even though it wants to offer a free trial, it wouldn’t do so without creating an account and adding a payment plan.

Even the basic tier called Adobe Standard limits the capabilities to just minor edits, signing, and a few more capabilities. BentoPDF offers most of what Adobe Acrobat’s Standard and Pro subscription plans can do, without asking a dime for it. OCR is a paid feature in Adobe Acrobat, but BentoPDF can do it while running on an old laptop server in my home.

The same goes for endless conversion options, where I get to convert a PDF file into a different format, which could be an image, text, or document. BentoPDF has a separate section for converting other format files like text, docs, and images into PDF, all of which are missing from free Adobe plans. So, Adobe Acrobat might work in an enterprise environment, but for a small-scale user like me, Bento PDF does a fantastic job.

It's open-source and up to date

No sketchy tracking tactics

Using an open-source app has its perks, and Bento PDF is a great example of it. I don’t have to worry about deceptive development practices, and everything is open for audit and tracking. The next best thing about BentoPDF is that it receives useful updates. The recent release added support for converting Microsoft Office and OpenOffice files into PDF format. It’s a game-changer because I don’t need to rely on a paid tool to convert documents from either my Windows or Apple ecosystem devices.

There are several more new features, like extracting data from PDFs. I sometimes need to extract and copy tables, and that is now possible in BentoPDF. So, the development cycle is going strong, and each new release has something exciting to look for.

I’m also in awe of the tool because it totally works on the client side without needing anything. I host it as a Docker container that uses barely 3 MB of memory in an idle state. Even when it's in action, it uses my computer’s resources via the browser to perform PDF-related tasks and doesn’t stress the weak home server.

Stirling PDF was a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat until a few months ago. My problems started when it introduced the Pixel tracking mechanism and later made it opt-in after community objections. I lost faith in it, and Bento PDF doesn’t have any such “bad” ideas so far, which makes it a reliable tool.

No more paid PDF tools

BentoPDF does an awesome job, and I can run it locally without ever worrying about the files leaving my device. The open-source, self-hosted nature is convincing enough to ditch paid tools like Adobe Acrobat and even free tools like Stirling PDF that try to add tracking mechanisms sneakily. Unless you need something very specific that only Adobe Acrobat offers, BentoPDF’s 50+ features will cover whatever task you throw at it.