Usually, when you’re looking for open-source alternatives to Adobe apps, you have plenty of options to choose from. For instance, apps like GIMP and Photopea serve as solid alternatives to Photoshop. You can even build a whole creative suite similar to Creative Cloud using open-source software. However, there’s one Adobe app that has far too few open-source alternatives — Acrobat. It has become the default choice for reading and processing PDFs, whether you use a Windows PC or a Mac. Still, there are a handful of open-source alternatives to Acrobat that you might want to consider. Here are four of them.

4 PDFsam

Mostly for splitting and extracting PDFs

PDFsam, short for PDF Split and Merge, is a handy open-source tool for working with PDFs. It lets you do things like split, merge, rotate, and extract pages. There are three versions: Basic, Visual, and Enhanced, each offering different features.

The free PDFsam Basic covers the essentials like merging, splitting, extracting, and rotating pages. If you need more, PDFsam Enhanced, which is a paid version, adds tools for editing text and images, adding digital signatures, converting PDFs to DOCX, and filling out forms. Then there is PDFsam Visual, which is also paid, and makes things more user-friendly with a drag-and-drop interface for reordering pages, cropping, resizing, merging files, and securing PDFs.

That said, PDFsam is not a full Acrobat replacement. It does not offer cloud storage or syncing across devices, and there is no web-based version, so you will need to install it on your computer. If you are expecting a one-to-one Acrobat alternative, this might not be it, but for basic PDF tasks, it does the job.

3 Stirling PDF

The web app represent

Stirling PDF is a feature-rich open-source PDF tool that runs as a self-hosted web app. Unlike other alternatives that require installation on a local device, Stirling PDF can be deployed on a private server, letting you access its tools through a web browser.

It supports over 100 different PDF-related operations, including merging, splitting, compressing, OCR scanning, watermarking, and encryption. It can also convert PDFs to and from multiple formats, like DOCX, PNG, and SVG. Since it runs on a server, it allows multiple users to edit PDFs simultaneously, making it useful for teams.

The biggest downside is that setting it up requires some technical knowledge, as it needs a server environment to run. It’s also not as polished as Acrobat in terms of UI, and there’s no dedicated Windows app. But if you want an open-source, web-based PDF editor that gives you complete control over your files, Stirling PDF is one of the best options.

2 LibreOffice Draw

It is part of the LibreOffice suite

LibreOffice Draw is part of the LibreOffice suite and serves as an alternative to Acrobat for basic PDF editing. While it’s primarily a vector graphics editor, it also allows users to open and edit PDF files directly.

You can modify text, images, and layout elements within a PDF, though it’s not as seamless as a dedicated PDF editor. Since LibreOffice Draw treats PDFs like graphic files, text editing can sometimes break formatting, especially in complex documents. It also lacks OCR support, which means you can’t edit scanned PDFs as easily as you could in Acrobat.

That said, for users already familiar with LibreOffice, Draw is a decent option for quick PDF edits without needing additional software. It’s best suited for modifying layouts, annotating documents, or making minor text changes rather than advanced PDF manipulation.

1 Inkscape

Vector graphics editor that doubles as a PDF editor

Inkscape is another open-source vector graphics editor that doubles as a PDF editor. It works best for editing PDFs with graphical elements, making it a useful alternative for users dealing with design-heavy documents.

Unlike other PDF tools, Inkscape treats each page as an SVG file, allowing precise control over individual elements like text, shapes, and images. This makes it great for tasks like modifying vector-based PDFs, adding annotations, or tweaking design elements. However, it’s not ideal for text-heavy documents, as it lacks features like OCR, digital signatures, or form-filling.

Since Inkscape is primarily a design tool, using it as a PDF editor can feel unintuitive if you’re expecting an Acrobat-style workflow. But if your PDF needs heavy design work rather than standard document editing, Inkscape is a solid open-source option.

Acrobat has many alternatives

While none of these tools fully replace Adobe Acrobat, they offer different levels of PDF editing, splitting, merging, and conversion, all without the cost of an Adobe subscription. If you are open to non-open-source apps, there are many free options that work well as Adobe alternatives. There are also various paid choices available.