Drawboard PDF vs LightPDF
Drawboard PDF
drawboard.com
LightPDF
lightpdf.comSide by side
| Figure | Drawboard PDF | LightPDF |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $1.33/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 5 |
| Spec score · PDF editors | 8.8 (#14) | 9.2 (#6) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | The product tour describes an email upload address for sending attachments to a Drawboard PDF cloud account, and browser links for opening online PDFs. | LightPDF's MCP documentation says its server can be configured in MCP-compatible clients such as Cursor and Claude. |
| Security | The privacy policy says customer traffic is encrypted with TLS 1.2 or higher and stored data with AES-256, and production hosting is in Microsoft Azure in the United States. | The pricing page states that data is encrypted in transit and at rest and lists ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 27701, and GDPR. |
| Support | The pricing page says organizations can contact sales for volume licensing and invoicing, while the site links to a Support Center. | The pricing page says users can contact live chat or submit a support ticket and receive a response within 24 hours. |
Plans
Drawboard PDF
- BasicPrice not published
- FreeFree
- Pro Plus (education)$10, paid once
- Pro Unlimited (education)$20, paid once
LightPDF
- Free PlanFree
- Monthly Plan$5.99 a month
- Yearly Plan$15.99 a year
- Lifetime Plan$39.99 a month
- Lifetime Plan$39.99, paid once
In their own words
Drawboard PDF
Drawboard PDF is a cross-device tool for marking up, reviewing, signing and sharing PDFs. It runs on the web, Windows, macOS, iOS and Android, with a Chrome extension, and lists text editing, annotation, OCR and PDF conversion. Markup options include a pen, highlighter, shapes, text review, signatures, images and audio notes. Smart ink recognition can convert freehand lines and shapes into geometric forms. On iOS and macOS, users also get calibrated length and area measurement, polylength, a protractor and a ruler. Document tools include merging and splitting PDFs, adding hyperlinks, applying tags and viewing separate documents in different windows. Shared files support live or asynchronous collaboration, with unlimited contributors on the free tier. Drawboard AI can summarize or rephrase selected text, define words, translate and correct grammar; its privacy policy says only selected text goes to OpenAI when invoked. The Free plan is free and includes 10 cloud documents, 40 MB per document and real-time sync. A 7-day trial is also listed.
LightPDF
LightPDF is an AI-powered PDF service for editing, converting, annotating, signing, organizing, and chatting with documents. Its AI Agent accepts chat requests for tasks such as merging, conversion, watermark removal, page numbering, and compression. Other listed AI features include translation, image processing, data extraction, invoice generation, and document enhancement. LightPDF offers a conversion API for PDFs and office documents, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images, HTML, and text. It is available on the web, Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows, with a Chrome/Edge extension. The free plan is web-only, limits files to 10MB, includes five cloud files for one year, and allows three AI Agent questions per day. Monthly and yearly plans include 1,000 AI credits per month; the lifetime plan includes 40,000 credits valid until used. Monthly costs $5.99 a month, Yearly costs $15.99 a year and includes a 3-day free trial, and Lifetime costs $39.99 a month. Premium features can be used on one device at a time.