LightPDF vs PDFgear
LightPDF
lightpdf.com
PDFgear
pdfgear.comSide by side
| Figure | LightPDF | PDFgear |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $1.33/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | 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 | 5 | 2 |
| Spec score · PDF editors | 9.2 (#6) | 9.0 (#11) |
| Spec score · PDF Merger Software | 9.3 (#3) | 8.6 (#9) |
| Spec score · PDF mergers | 9.2 (#5) | 8.4 (#9) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | LightPDF's MCP documentation says its server can be configured in MCP-compatible clients such as Cursor and Claude. | An App Store reviewer reports cloud integration for accessing documents and collaborating across locations. |
| Licence | LightPDF's EULA describes the software as copyrighted proprietary software, licensed for one computer at a time, with redistribution, sublicensing and network hosting restricted. | The EULA grants a non-transferable, non-exclusive licence and prohibits reverse engineering, redistribution and derivative works without permission. |
| Rating on Apple App Store | 4.1 out of 5 from 54 ratings | 4.7 out of 5 from 8.2K ratings. |
| Rating on Capterra | 5.0 out of 5 from 7 reviews | 5.0 out of 5 from 17 reviews. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.6 out of 5 from 22 reviews | 4.8 out of 5 from 123 reviews. |
| Rating on Trustpilot | 3.7 out of 5 from 75 reviews | 4.9 out of 5 from 11,530 reviews. |
| Support | The pricing page says users can contact live chat or submit a support ticket and receive a response within 24 hours. | Independent directory listings identify email/help-desk support, FAQs, documentation and videos. |
| System requirements | The iOS app requires iOS 14.0 or later and is listed as 118 MB. | The Windows app requires Windows 10 or 11, a 1 GHz or faster processor, 512 MB RAM minimum and 500 MB free disk space. |
| What it does | LightPDF is an AI-powered PDF service for editing, conversion, annotation, signing, organization, document chat and related workflows across web, mobile and desktop. | PDFgear provides PDF reading, editing, annotation, conversion, page management, protection, signing and AI-assisted document chat. |
Plans
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
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.