Apple iWork vs SoftMaker Office
Apple iWork
apple.comSoftMaker Office
softmaker.deSide by side
| Figure | Apple iWork | SoftMaker Office |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $2.50/mo | $2.49/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 7 |
| Spec score · Office Suite Software | 9.3 (#1) | 8.6 (#8) |
| Documentation | Apple provides separate Pages, Numbers, and Keynote support hubs plus platform-specific user guides. | SoftMaker publishes online and PDF manuals for Office applications and BasicMaker. |
| Integrations | Pages integrates with iCloud and Box for sharing, EndNote through an Apple-supported plug-in, and Microsoft Word, RTF, TXT, EPUB, and PDF export formats. | TextMaker supports Zotero for academic documents and includes DeepL translation and ChatGPT AI features. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.6 out of 5 from 22 reviews | 4.3 out of 5 from 12 reviews. |
| Rating on GetApp | 4.6 out of 5 from 180 reviews | 4.4 out of 5 from 13 reviews. |
| Support | Apple provides Pages, Numbers, and Keynote user guides, community forums, and a support contact path. | SoftMaker lists a support forum, customer support, feedback, tips and tricks, service packs, and user manuals; the feature page states customer support is free. |
| System requirements | Creator Studio versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote require iOS 18 or later, iPadOS 18 or later, or macOS Sequoia 15.6 or later; some intelligence features require version 26 systems. | The 2026 download supports Windows 11, 10, 8, 7 and Server 2008 R2 or later 64-bit, macOS 10.14 or later and any x64 Linux. |
| What it does | iWork is Apple’s productivity suite combining Pages for documents, Numbers for spreadsheets, and Keynote for presentations. | SoftMaker Office is a desktop productivity suite containing TextMaker word processing, PlanMaker spreadsheets and Presentations slide software. |
Plans
Apple iWork
- Free iWork appsFree
- iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)Free
- Apple Creator Studio Education$2.99 a month
- Apple Creator Studio$12.99 a month
- Apple Creator Studio Education$29.99 a year
- Apple Creator Studio$129 a year
SoftMaker Office
- SoftMaker Office NX Home (monthly)$2.99 a month
- SoftMaker Office NX Universal (monthly)$4.99 a month
- SoftMaker Office NX Home (annual)$29.90 a year
- SoftMaker Office NX Universal$39.90 a year
- SoftMaker Office NX Universal (annual)$39.90 a year
- SoftMaker Office Professional 2026$139.95, paid once
- SoftMaker Office Professional 2026$149.95, paid once
In their own words
Apple iWork
Apple iWork is a free suite for creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It brings together Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, with tools suited to different kinds of work: Pages supports documents with pictures, movies, shapes, and charts; Numbers combines a blank-canvas spreadsheet with charts, tables, Smart Categories, and pivot tables; and Keynote offers graphics tools and cinematic transitions. The apps support real-time collaboration across Mac, iPad, and iPhone, including with people using a PC. Up to 100 people can view and edit a shared document at once. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are also available online at iCloud.com in Mac or PC browsers, including Safari, Chrome, and Edge. Numbers spreadsheets can be converted to Microsoft Excel, CSV, or PDF. On iPad, Apple Pencil can add illustrations and notations. Collaboration requires iCloud Drive and current supported software and app versions; shared files larger than 2 GB must be reduced before inviting others, or 4 GB for Apple Creator Studio subscribers. iWork collaboration does not support Advanced Data Protection.
SoftMaker Office
SoftMaker Office is a paid suite for documents, spreadsheets and presentations on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. It includes TextMaker, PlanMaker and Presentations, and uses DOCX, XLSX and PPTX as native formats. TextMaker can create PDF, PDF/A and PDF forms, with options such as password protection, encryption, accessibility and font embedding. PlanMaker supports more than 80 chart types and opens and saves XLSX and XLS files, including password-protected files. Writing tools include spell checking in more than 85 languages, LanguageTool grammar and style checks in over 30 languages, and DeepL translation in 30 languages. TextMaker also supports Zotero and includes DeepL and ChatGPT features. Listed options range from $2.99 per month for NX Home monthly to $139.95 once for Office Professional 2026; a 30-day trial is available. NX Universal includes stated annual or monthly allowances for translation characters, AI text characters and AI images. Some features, including BasicMaker macros and the advanced font manager, are Windows-only.