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Irfan PDF vs the usual PDF tools

17 fields, five products. Irfan PDF rows come from the shipped code and tests; competitor rows come from the vendors' own pages, fetched and cited.

Verification date 2026-10-16No claim of superiority without evidence

How this comparison was built

“Free / Paid / Limited / Supported / Not Verified” cells each carry a source marker. Click a marker to jump to the citation below the table. For Irfan PDF the source is always [P0] — the project's own code, changelog and the 43-suite regression gate (43 / 43 suites PASS, run 2026-10-17; the failure that run found first, and the fix it led to, are in the release notes).

Only rows where products differ

Showing 17 of 17 rows · verification date 2026-10-16

Feature comparison of Irfan PDF against Adobe Acrobat, Foxit PDF Editor, PDF-XChange Editor and PDF24 Creator. Verification date 2026-10-16.
Field	Irfan PDFTHIS PRODUCT	Adobe Acrobat	Foxit PDF Editor	PDF-XChange Editor	PDF24 Creator
PricingPricing	Free No payment, checkout or license-key code exists anywhere in the project. [P0]	Paid Subscription; Acrobat Pro US$19.99/mo (annual, billed monthly). Perpetual sales discontinued after Acrobat 2020. [A2][A4][A1]	Paid US$129.99/user/year (Editor), US$159.99 (Editor+), monthly billing from US$10.99; perpetual US$209.99 one-time. [F1]	Paid Perpetual license from US$62.00 (Editor) / US$79.00 (Editor Plus), includes one year of maintenance. [X2][X1]	Free “Completely free of charge and without any restrictions.” [P1]
Free usagePricing	Free Every feature is available with no tier, trial or watermark. [P0]	Limited Acrobat Reader is free; full editing/OCR is paid. Online tools are offered as a free trial. [A1][A3][A4]	Limited 14-day free trial (no credit card); the separate Foxit PDF Reader is free. [F1]	Limited Free version: “70% of features are unrestricted”; licensed features add a watermark. [X1]	Free No limits or watermarks, for private and business use. [P1][P3]
Windows supportPlatform	Supported Windows 10 (1809+) or Windows 11, 64-bit — the documented and tested target; the installer itself sets no minimum-version check. [P0]	Supported Desktop, web and mobile apps. [A1]	Supported Windows, macOS and web apps (mobile in Editor+). [F1]	Supported “MS Windows 10 and later”, 32/64-bit and ARM64 installers. [X1]	Supported Windows app (PDF24 Creator), also in the Microsoft Store. [P1][P3]
Offline operationPlatform	Supported Server binds 127.0.0.1 only; zero HTTP clients, telemetry or analytics in the code. OCR models are bundled. [P0]	Not Verified No official statement about offline use found on the fetched pages.	Not Verified No official statement about offline use found on the fetched pages.	Not Verified Desktop installers imply local use; no explicit offline statement found on the fetched pages.	Supported Creator works offline “so files stay on your PC”. [P1]
OCRCore work	Supported Searchable and editable OCR, offline RapidOCR/ONNX with the English PP-OCRv5 model; auto-orientation and deskew. [P0]	Supported “OCR PDF — Recognize text”; scans to searchable/editable PDFs. [A3][A1]	Supported “OCR: Scan to searchable PDFs” in the feature matrix. [F1]	Supported Default OCR engine in Editor; enhanced engine in Editor Plus; OCR language packages. [X1]	Supported “PDF OCR” creates searchable PDFs; Creator ships all PDF24 tools. [P2][P3][P1]
PDF editingCore work	Supported Edit existing text (embedded-font preservation), add text/images/signatures/shapes/highlights; verified by pixel-diff tests. [P0]	Supported “Edit text and images, rearrange content, organize pages.” [A1]	Supported “Edit text, images, and pages.” [F1]	Supported 402-feature editor (257 free / 145 licensed). [X1]	Supported Edit PDF, annotate, fill, watermark, crop, page size. [P3]
CompressionCore work	Supported Quick levels plus target-size mode (up to 7 validated passes); image compressor with target size. [P0]	Supported “Compress PDF — Reduce the size of your PDF.” [A3]	Supported “Optimize PDF file size.” [F1]	Supported Save as Optimized; recompress document images. [X1]	Supported Compress PDF and Web optimize PDF tools. [P3]
SplitCore work	Supported Split tool with ranges and per-file outputs (regression-tested). [P0]	Supported “Split PDF — Separate a file into multiple PDFs.” [A3]	Supported “Split PDFs into separate files.” [F1]	Supported Split document pages; split by size and by guide lines. [X1]	Supported Split PDF tool. [P3]
MergeCore work	Supported Merge several documents into one (regression-tested). [P0]	Supported “Merge PDFs — Merge multiple files into a single PDF.” [A3]	Supported “Merge multiple PDFs.” [F1]	Supported Combine existing files into a new document; merge document pages. [X1]	Supported Merge PDF tool. [P3]
Batch processingCore work	Supported Up to 200 documents, 7 operations, per-file outcomes, CSV report, Stop honoured between documents and between OCR pages, retry-only-failed. [P0]	Supported Action Wizard and batch processing across multiple documents. [A1]	Not Verified No batch-processing statement found on the fetched pages.	Not Verified No general batch-processing statement found on the fetched pages.	Not Verified No batch-processing statement found on the fetched pages.
PDF to WordConvert	Supported pdf2docx with Microsoft Word COM as accuracy fallback; end-to-end tested. [P0]	Supported “PDF to Word — Convert a PDF to a Microsoft Word file.” [A3]	Supported “Convert to/from Word, Excel, PowerPoint.” [F1]	Supported “Convert PDF Files to MS Word Format.” [X1]	Supported PDF to Word and PDF to DOCX tools. [P3]
Image conversionConvert	Supported JPG/PNG→PDF, PDF→images, image→Word, image→text, extract embedded images. [P0]	Supported JPG/PNG/HEIC…→PDF and PDF→JPG/PNG tools. [A3]	Supported “Convert … to image formats”, JPG/PNG to PDF tools. [F1]	Supported Image files→PDF; PDF→WebP images (other raster exports listed as licensed features). [X1]	Supported Images to PDF, PDF to Images/JPG/PNG/SVG/TIFF, HEIC/WEBP converters. [P3]
PDF to ExcelConvert	Supported Real .xlsx built from column geometry; opened and validated in Excel. [P0]	Supported “PDF to Excel” tool. [A3]	Supported “Convert to/from … Excel.” [F1]	Supported “Convert PDF Files to MS Excel Format.” [X1]	Supported PDF to Excel and PDF to XLSX tools. [P3]
Security (password / redact)Security	Supported AES-256 protection, password removal, permanent redaction proven by re-reading output; signed PDFs are refused, not modified. [P0]	Supported “Protect PDF — Set a password”; permanent redaction in Acrobat Pro. [A3][A1]	Supported Password protection & security; manual redaction. [F1]	Supported Security policies, digital signatures, redaction tools. [X1]	Supported Protect PDF, Unlock PDF, Redact PDF, remove metadata. [P3]
AI featuresAI features	Supported Local quoted-text analysis (Assistant) and document Analyst — no cloud, no API key, no language model; test-enforced. [P0]	Supported AI Assistant / PDF Spaces; AI Assistant Plus from US$4.99/mo on top of Acrobat. [A4][A1]	Supported AI Assistant included with 300 credits/month (2,000 with the paid add-on). [F1]	Supported AI Assistant supporting OpenAI/Anthropic/Google — only with your own API key. [X1]	Not Verified No AI feature listed in the fetched tool catalog.
Portable deploymentDeployment & usability	Supported Self-contained Professional ZIP: extract and run, includes its own Python runtime and the test suite. [P0]	Not Verified No official portable (no-install) package found on the fetched pages.	Not Verified No official portable package found on the fetched pages.	Supported Official “Editor Portable Version” downloads (incl. x64, with or without OCR). [X1]	Not Verified Desktop apps listed (Creator, PDF Printer, Reader); no portable package found on the fetched pages.
Usability — starts without an account or connectionDeployment & usability	Supported No account (sign-in off by default), no internet, no admin rights for the installer. [P0]	Not Verified Account/activation requirements were not confirmed on the fetched pages.	Not Verified Account requirements were not confirmed on the fetched pages.	Not Verified Account requirements were not confirmed on the fetched pages.	Supported Online tools: “No installation or registration required”; Creator is free for private and business use. [P3][P1]

Status legend

Free
Supported
Limited
Paid
Not Supported
Not Verified

Not Verified means we could not confirm the claim on the vendor's own pages at the verification date — it is not a claim that the feature is missing.

Sources (fetched 2026-10-16)

[P0]Irfan PDF project files: source, CHANGELOG.md, TEST-REPORT.md, regression gate 43 suites (43 / 43 suites PASS, run 2026-10-17)
[A1]adobe.com/acrobat.html (product page + FAQ) (opens in a new tab)
[A2]adobe.com/acrobat/plans.html (plans & pricing) (opens in a new tab)
[A3]adobe.com/acrobat/online.html (online tools catalog) (opens in a new tab)
[A4]adobe.com/acrobat/free-trial-download.html (trial & pricing) (opens in a new tab)
[F1]foxit.com/pdf-editor/pricing (pricing, features, FAQ) (opens in a new tab)
[X1]pdf-xchange.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor (features, downloads) (opens in a new tab)
[X2]pdf-xchange.com/pricing (license pricing) (opens in a new tab)
[P1]tools.pdf24.org/en/creator (PDF24 Creator) (opens in a new tab)
[P2]tools.pdf24.org/en/ocr-pdf (OCR tool) (opens in a new tab)
[P3]tools.pdf24.org/en/all-tools (full tool catalog) (opens in a new tab)

What this table deliberately does not do

It never marks a competitor feature “Not Supported” without an explicit statement on their site — uncertainty is shown as Not Verified.
It never claims IRFAN PDF is “better”. It claims only what the shipped test suite proved for this product, and what the vendors published for theirs.
Prices change; re-verify them on the linked pages before quoting them.