# Best Free PDF Editors in 2026

Source: https://listme.name/best/pdf-editors/free

PDF editors range from full paid editors to browser tools and page utilities. This ranking separates tools that edit a PDF's content from tools that only view, annotate or rearrange pages, and it notes which options are free and open source.

## 1. Adobe Acrobat (score 90.5)

The reference implementation: the most complete editing, conversion, redaction and signing tools, with apps on every platform. It is subscription-only for editing, so it costs more than PDF-XChange or Foxit.

- Best for: Complete PDF editing with the widest compatibility
- Free plan, paid upgrades | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web
- Website: https://www.adobe.com/acrobat.html
- Page: https://listme.name/software/adobe-acrobat

## 2. PDF-XChange Editor (score 89.5)

A free Windows PDF editor with annotation and conversion from Word, RTF and Markdown, and a Plus edition with more features. It is built for Windows, so Mac and Linux users need another tool.

- Best for: Free PDF editing on Windows
- Free plan, paid upgrades | Windows
- Website: https://www.pdf-xchange.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor
- Page: https://listme.name/software/pdf-xchange-editor

## 3. Smallpdf (score 86.0)

Browser-based PDF tools for editing, converting, compressing and signing, with a free plan. Files go through the company's servers, which matters for confidential documents, and heavy editing is shallower than Foxit's.

- Best for: Quick browser tools for occasional PDF tasks
- Free plan, paid upgrades | Web
- Website: https://smallpdf.com/
- Page: https://listme.name/software/smallpdf

## 4. Sejda (score 85.0)

Online and desktop PDF tools with a forever free tier that covers merging, splitting, compressing and cropping. Free use has limits, so regular users will need a paid plan.

- Best for: Occasional PDF tasks with a desktop option
- Free plan, paid upgrades | Web, Windows, macOS, Linux
- Website: https://www.sejda.com/
- Page: https://listme.name/software/sejda

## 5. Okular (score 79.5)

A free, open-source viewer with annotation and signature checks on Linux, Windows, macOS and Android. It is mainly a viewer, so text and page editing are limited compared with the editors above.

- Best for: Free annotation and signing on Linux
- Free and open source | Linux, Windows, macOS, Android | open source (GPL-2.0-or-later)
- Website: https://okular.kde.org/
- Page: https://listme.name/software/okular

## 6. PDFsam (score 77.0)

Free, open-source page tools for splitting, merging, extracting and rotating PDFs with no watermarks. It does not edit text or images, so it complements rather than replaces an editor.

- Best for: Splitting and merging PDFs offline
- Free and open source | Windows, macOS, Linux | open source (AGPL-3.0)
- Website: https://pdfsam.org/
- Page: https://listme.name/software/pdfsam