Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

PDFsam VS CryptPad

Compare PDFsam VS CryptPad and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

PDFsam logo PDFsam

PDFsam Basic, a free, open source, multi-platform software designed to split, merge, extract pages, mix and rotate PDF files

CryptPad logo CryptPad

CryptPad is a collaborative office suite that is end-to-end encrypted and open-source.
  • PDFsam Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-27
  • CryptPad Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-16

About CryptPad

CryptPad is a private-by-design alternative to popular office tools and cloud services. All the content stored on CryptPad is encrypted before being sent, which means nobody can access your data unless you give them the keys.

A full suite of applications

CryptPad provides a full-fledged office suite with all the tools necessary for productive collaboration. Applications include: Rich Text, Spreadsheets, Code/Markdown, Kanban, Slides, Whiteboard and Forms.

End-to-end encrypted

All data on CryptPad is encrypted in the browser. This means no readable data leaves the user's device. Even the service administrators cannot see the content of documents or user data.

Private Collaboration

CryptPad is built to enable collaboration with features such as team drives, calendar, and sharing. It synchronizes changes to documents in real time. Because all data is encrypted, the service and its administrators have no way of seeing the content being edited and stored.

PDFsam

Website
pdfsam.org
$ Details
free
Platforms
Windows Linux Mac OSX

CryptPad

Pricing URL
-
$ Details
freemium โ‚ฌ5.0 / Monthly (Personal 5GB)
Platforms
Windows Mac OSX Linux Android iOS

PDFsam features and specs

  • Cost
    PDFsam Basic is free and open-source, which makes it highly accessible for individual users and small businesses.
  • User Interface
    The interface is simple and straightforward, allowing users to easily navigate and use the essential features without a steep learning curve.
  • Functionality
    PDFsam includes essential features such as merging, splitting, rotating, and extracting PDF pages, which can cover most common PDF editing needs.
  • Cross-Platform
    PDFsam is available on multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, ensuring broad compatibility and usability.
  • Community Support
    Being an open-source project, PDFsam has a community of users and developers who contribute to its improvement and troubleshooting.

Possible disadvantages of PDFsam

  • Advanced Features
    The free version lacks advanced features like OCR, which are available in the paid versions such as PDFsam Enhanced.
  • Performance
    Some users report that the application can be slow when processing large documents or performing complex tasks.
  • Interface Design
    While functional, the user interface is not as modern or visually appealing compared to some other PDF software.
  • Commercial Use
    For businesses, the licenses for the advanced features in PDFsam Enhanced can be costly, especially for small enterprises.
  • Customer Support
    While there is a user community for support, professional customer support is limited to the paid versions, which might be a hurdle for those needing quick assistance.

CryptPad features and specs

  • End-to-end encryption
  • Fully open source
  • Real-time collaboraton

Analysis of PDFsam

Overall verdict

  • PDFsam is considered a good tool, especially for users who need a straightforward and cost-effective solution for managing PDFs. Its open-source background ensures transparency and community support, while its user-friendly interface appeals to those without advanced technical skills.

Why this product is good

  • PDFsam (PDF Split and Merge) is a popular tool for handling PDF documents due to its simplicity, open-source nature, and ability to perform a range of common PDF tasks like splitting, merging, rotating, and extracting pages. It offers both a free basic version and a more advanced version with additional features, making it accessible and flexible for different user needs.

Recommended for

    PDFsam is recommended for individuals and small businesses looking for an easy-to-use, cost-efficient PDF tool capable of handling everyday PDF manipulation tasks without the complexity or expense of more advanced software. Itโ€™s particularly suitable for users who require basic features and occasional PDF editing.

Analysis of CryptPad

Overall verdict

  • Yes, CryptPad is generally considered a good platform for collaborative work, especially if privacy is a primary concern.

Why this product is good

  • CryptPad offers end-to-end encryption, meaning that your data is encrypted on your device and only decrypted on the devices of users you share it with. It emphasizes privacy and security, ensuring that even the service providers cannot access your data. Additionally, it provides a range of collaborative tools, including document editing, spreadsheets, and presentations, making it a versatile option for teamwork.

Recommended for

  • Individuals and teams who prioritize privacy and data security.
  • Collaborative work environments needing secure document sharing and editing capabilities.
  • Educational institutions seeking a secure platform for student collaboration.
  • Activists and journalists who require confidential communication and document handling.

PDFsam videos

How to Use PDFsam

More videos:

  • Demo - PDFSamVisual Demo

CryptPad videos

CryptPad Encrypted collaborative editing without trusting the server

More videos:

  • Demo - CryptPad Sprint #1 Demo
  • Review - CryptPad - FLOSS Weekly 532

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to PDFsam and CryptPad)
PDF Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Office Suites
0 0%
100% 100
PDF Editor
100 100%
0% 0
Project Management
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare PDFsam and CryptPad

PDFsam Reviews

15 PDF editors quick review
This is a simple open source Java pdf editor. The basic version allows you to edit the content and structure of pdf documents. Builds of this version are available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. PDFsam Enhanced version provides all the basic tools needed for the pdf editor. Special utilities for securing files and converting their contents are only available in the Pro version.

CryptPad Reviews

5 great privacy-focused Evernote alternatives to keep your notes safe
CryptPad is, as the name suggests, type of a Pad. Pads are created as a transformative way for people to collaborate on text (including code), any change to the code done by any of the participants is seen almost immediately. Such technology allows people who are geographically separated to work on the same project as if they were in the same room. Many projects around the...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CryptPad should be more popular than PDFsam. It has been mentiond 93 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

PDFsam mentions (32)

  • JavaFX In Action with Pedro Duque Vieira, aka Duke, about Hero, PDFSam, FXThemes, FXComponents,...
    He shares insights into a few applications, like Hero (CAD application to calculate energy efficiency) and PDFSam (powerful and professional PDF editor). PDFSam had 100.000 downloads in April '24! - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Pdftool.org: modify pdfs offline in the browser
    I find pdfsam to be the perfect offline tool for me on Windows. https://pdfsam.org And it's open source as well: https://github.com/torakiki/pdfsam. - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
  • Free pdf editor?
    That might be fit for your purpose PDFSam. Source: about 3 years ago
  • My 2023 Bingo Card
    Use pdfsam.org to split the pdf into individual sheets fyi. Source: over 3 years ago
  • What's the best tool to merge pdf files?
    PDFsam - merge, split, extract pages, rotate and mix your PDF files. Source: over 3 years ago
View more

CryptPad mentions (93)

  • Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform
    It's always a good thing to have multiple players and I hope we can have actual EU-based alternatives, but I feel like this is less interesting as a project than _La Suite numรฉrique_ [1] developed by the French government or _CryptPad_ [2] developed by XWiki, a French company based in Paris. [1] https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/ [2] https://cryptpad.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native
    This wouldn't address building an actual E2EE service. This is a hard issue. CryptPad [1] does this but it has strong limitations inherent to a fully E2EE system. (disclaimer: I work for the company which develop CryptPad, but I don't myself work on it) [1] https://cryptpad.org. - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • French gov's open source alternative to Notion or Outline
    For e2ee you might want to have a look at CryptPad (https://cryptpad.org). You can test it on the free instance https://cryptpad.fr You'll have plenty of doc types with full end to end encryption, including for your drive. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: Hackable Personal Database?
    I'm looking for the same. Open source, self hosted, and end-to-end encrypted. I haven't found anything that really does all of this, but it seems like Cryptpad[0] and Peergos[1] are viable platforms upon which something like this could be built. Except for encryption, Atomic Data[2] seems like a really cool platform to build this on. [0] https://cryptpad.org/ [1] https://peergos.org/ [2] - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Proton launches its own version of Google Docs
    I see that they claim all of their apps and libraries are open source[0]. But they only link to the OpenPGP libraries they're using. Is this actually open source? Following the "Open Source" footer link[1], here they only link to the ProtonMail Github account with nothing mentioning ProtonDrive. And if it is actually open source, I'd love to see a comparison to CryptPad[2] > which is why weโ€™ve made all our apps... - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing PDFsam and CryptPad, you can also consider the following products

Adobe Acrobat DC - Make your job easier with Adobe Acrobat DC, the trusted PDF creator. Use Acrobat to convert, edit and sign PDF files at your desk or on the go.

ONLYOFFICE - ONLYOFFICE is a complete office and productivity suite.

PDF-XChange Editor - The smallest, fastest, most feature-rich PDF editor/viewer available

LibreOffice - Free office suite, open source, and compatible with .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx files. Updated regularly โ€“ download for free. Originally based on OpenOffice.org.

PDF24 PDF Creator - Create PDF and convert documents to PDF for free with the free PDF24 PDF Creator.

Apache OpenOffice - Apache OpenOffice is an open source, office document productivity suite.