Software Alternatives & Startups

PDFsam VS PDFMonkey

Compare PDFsam VS PDFMonkey and see what are their differences

PDFsam

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

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Open source Free
PDFMonkey

Automate your PDF generation.

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Open source Freemium Free trial €15 / Monthly (3000 documents, 7 days retention, Load images, fonts, CSS & JS)

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, PDFsam seems to be a lot more popular than PDFMonkey. While we know about 32 links to PDFsam, we've tracked only 1 mention of PDFMonkey.

social mentions
32 vs 1
PDF Tools popularity
79% vs 21%
alternatives listed
240+ vs 112

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

PDFsam
PDFMonkey
Website pdfsam.org pdfmonkey.io
Pricing
Open source Free Official pricing
Open source Freemium Free trial €15 / Monthly (3000 documents, 7 days retention, Load images, fonts, CSS & JS) Official pricing
Platforms
Windows Linux Mac OSX
Make Bubble Automation Zapier +1
Company — Startup from France · 1 - 9 employees · 2019
Listed in

About PDFsam and PDFMonkey

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

PDFsam
PDFMonkey

No description of PDFsam yet.

PDFMonkey is your automation tool perfect for generating a high volume of PDFs. HTML to PDF with our restless API or with various automation tool such as Zapier, Make or Bubble. Link it with thousands of tools to automate your workflow and simplify your PDF management.

Read more about PDFMonkey

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

PDFsam 5 features
PDFMonkey 4 features
  • 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

  • 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.
  • Snippets
    Share code between different templates
  • Direct generation
    Generate a PDF when updated informations
  • XML embedding
    Insert XML inside the PDF and generate a PDF 3-A compatible factur-X
  • PDF generation
    PDF generation that you can connect with thousands of tools

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

PDFsam
PDFMonkey

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. It’s particularly suitable for users who require basic features and occasional PDF editing.

No analysis of PDFMonkey yet.

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

PDFsam 2 videos + Add
PDFMonkey 1 video + Add

How to Use PDFsam

More videos

  • - PDFSamVisual Demo

PDFMonkey - explained

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
PDFsam
PDFMonkey
79% 79%
21% 21%
100% 100%
0% 0%
0% 0%
100% 100%
79% 79%
21% 21%

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing PDFsam and PDFMonkey.

What makes your product unique?

PDFMonkey's answer:

PDFMonkey is a simple PDF generation tool that can make your task easier with automated shipping labels, invoices or any other PDF hassle.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

PDFMonkey's answer:

PDFMonkey is one of the oldest in the market but also one of the best tool giving advanced features and improved support on automation tools such as Zapier, Make and bubble.

User comments

Share your experience with using PDFsam and PDFMonkey. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Log in or Post with

Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

PDFsam no reviews yet
PDFMonkey no reviews yet
  • 15 PDF editors quick review
    thinkmobiles.com · May 2020

    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...

  • 14 Best PDF APIs for Every Business Need
    geekflare.com · Nov 2023

    PDFMonkey helps you with automating the process of PDF generation. Using it, you can effortlessly manage your templates and insert dynamic data in them whenever necessary. Thus, it saves precious time for the...

Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

PDFsam 32 mentions
PDFMonkey 1 mention
  • 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 / over 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 / about 3 years ago
  • Free pdf editor?
    That might be fit for your purpose PDFSam. Source: over 3 years ago

View more

  • From PDFMonkey to Aim Monkey: Building internal tools that actually help
    One of the first features I worked on when starting my career was AIM's pdf generation tool. It was time to migrate off of PDF monkey's SaaS product to our own solution. We had to figure a way of maintaining the same templates we used... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago

Alternatives to PDFsam and PDFMonkey

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