Edit text in place, sign, redact, reorganize. True content-stream rewrite, not stamp-on-top.
LaunchEdit, sign, redact, and reorganize PDF files in your browser. The Adobe Acrobat alternative that runs on your device — no upload, no subscription.
Pixel-perfect PDF diff with word-level text view, metadata + form-field compare, ruler, and exclusion zones.
LaunchSide-by-side or overlay PDF diff with a document-type selector — Document (contracts, reports), AEC / Blueprint (drawings, schematics), or Image-Scan. Highlights pixel-level differences plus a word-level text diff in a modal.
Open any PCB Gerber bundle in your browser. Gerber X2, Excellon, layer compare, snap-to-pad measure, snapshot URLs.
LaunchOpen RS-274X / X2 Gerber and Excellon files. Inspect layers, measure traces, export to PNG / SVG / DXF.
Compress, merge, split, convert, and manipulate PDF files.
Resize, compress, convert, and transform images.
Format, encode, decode, and validate code and data — safe for production secrets.
Convert, compress, and cut audio and video — MP3, WAV, MP4, WebM, Opus — all in your browser, nothing uploads.
Sourdough baker math, canning processing times — kitchen math you should not memorize.
AES-256 file encryption and self-destructing encrypted notes.
Analyze packet captures and run sysadmin diagnostics in your browser — nothing uploads. PCAP Analyzer ships first.
Chart-overlay technical analysis and precision financial math — your screenshots and numbers never leave your device.
Open CAD, BIM, medical, and enterprise files without paying $300-30K/year for the native software. Gerber Viewer ships first.
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC installs at roughly 1.55 GB and recommends 8 GB of free disk space plus 8 GB of RAM. Loft Tools runs the same operations on a few megabytes of WebAssembly inside a browser tab. Here is the breakdown, and why the gap is bigger than it looks.
For occasional PDF tasks → use Loft. Browser-based, free, files never leave your device. Pay nothing, install nothing.
For daily heavy PDF authoring → use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. The 1.55 GB install cost amortises over thousands of operations a month and the depth of feature is genuinely worth $240/year.
For most users in the middle → start with Loft; reach for Acrobat only when you hit a feature gap.
| Adobe Acrobat Pro DC | Adobe Acrobat Reader DC | Loft Tools | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disk required to install | 4.5 GB | n/a | 0 |
| Installer download | ~1.55 GB | ~600 MB | 0 |
| At-rest size on disk | varies; grows substantially after cumulative updates | ~2 GB on Windows | ~5–10 MB cached in browser per tool |
| RAM recommended | 8 GB | 4 GB | bounded by tab (a per-tab memory cap, low hundreds of MB on modern phones) |
| Update flow | monthly patches, hundreds of MB each | same | page reload — silent |
| Cross-platform | Windows + Mac | Windows + Mac + mobile | every browser, every OS |
| Cost | $239.88 / yr annual plan ($19.99/mo) | free | free |
Adobe’s installer requirement of 4.5 GB during install and 1.55 GB installer is from their own technical requirements page. The 2 GB at-rest figure for Reader on Windows comes from Michael Horowitz’s audit, which walked the install tree to confirm. The Loft side comes from our own production bundle — across all PDF tools combined, the lazy-loaded JavaScript + WebAssembly is roughly 20 MB on disk in the deploy output, of which any single tool needs maybe 5–10 MB on first visit. Cached after that.
The gap is roughly two orders of magnitude. Not because Adobe is bloated; because their architecture has to bring the entire feature surface to your machine up front, while ours only ships the code for the specific tool you opened, on the visit you opened it.
I work in PDF every day, mostly authoring — Acrobat Pro. The depth is worth the install and the subscription.
I need to compress a single contract before emailing it — Loft. The job takes 30 seconds. Installing Adobe for this is the wrong shape of solution.
I want to redact a tax return — Loft. The file never leaves your device, which matters for tax documents. Acrobat’s redaction is more polished if you do it weekly; Loft’s is enough if you do it twice a year.
I’m on a Chromebook, Linux box, or older Mac — Loft. Acrobat Pro doesn’t run there reliably; Acrobat Reader is heavier than the device wants.
I run batch automation across 1000+ PDFs — Acrobat Pro Action Wizard. Loft processes one file at a time per tab.
I need an installed mobile app for offline field use — Acrobat mobile, probably. Loft works as a PWA but the install discovery is poorer on iOS.
I’m not sure — try the operation on Loft first. If it works, you saved $240. If it doesn’t, you know exactly what feature gap to shop Acrobat for.
Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is free and takes ~2 GB on Windows at rest. It reads PDFs and offers a small subset of edit operations. The $240/year Pro subscription buys the authoring side — editing, forms, redaction, OCR, batch.
If reading is all you need, your browser’s built-in PDF viewer (Chrome ships PDFium; Firefox ships PDF.js) probably covers it without Reader OR Loft.
I keep Acrobat Pro installed on one machine for the deep work and I use Loft for everything else. The boundary moves around — there are months where I never open Acrobat, and months where I’m in it daily. The point is I don’t have to pick one. Same PDF format, same files, two tools that fit different sides of the work.
If you’re starting from zero today and you don’t already know you need Adobe Pro, my advice is: don’t subscribe yet. Try Loft for your real work for two weeks. Pick up Acrobat only if and when you hit a specific feature gap you can’t work around. That’s how the $240/year decision should be made.
The pillar at /docs/how-it-works/ covers the architecture decisions that make Loft’s footprint that small. The Adobe pricing breakdown post goes deeper on the subscription side specifically.
