Sign a PDF
Signing covers two quite different jobs: putting your own signature on a document, and sending one out for somebody else to sign. They need very different tools.
67 tools here do less than the name of this job suggests, and each one's profile says what it actually does. That sentence is on the profile rather than repeated on every row.
67 options · Sources read 18 October 2026 · Signing workflows are not compared here. How each service processes and retains documents is recorded on its profile from the vendor’s own pages.
- What it takes, and what it produces
- In: a PDF. Out: a PDF carrying a signature.
- What limits it
- A drawn or pasted signature and a certificate signature are different things, and only the second verifies who signed. Which one a tool performs is on its record, and it is the distinction worth checking before you rely on the output.
Sign tools: controls, file handling and cost
These are different ways to do the same job. The order does not indicate quality, and where we have not checked something the row says so rather than guessing.
- 67
- tools handle this job
- 25
- keep the file on your device
- Observed by us, or no server anywhere in the path. Of the other 42: 10 upload your file; 28 process some versions on your device and run others on a server; 3 are documented as staying local but have not been tested; 1 runs on a server you provide.
67 tools for signing
Ordered by relevance to this job, not by payment. Our overall ranking is in the full index.
- PandaDoc
We could not check.
Price Free tierLicence Proprietary hosted SaaSYour files Uploads - claimed -
Our pick 8: Self-hosted e-signing, open source, so the documents stay on your own infrastructure.
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Our pick 1: Run it yourself and nothing leaves your network. Redaction deletes the matching text without flattening the page - we tested that on our own instance.
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Our pick 6: A KDE viewer with native PDF annotations and a GPLv2+ licence, so the marks travel inside the document.
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Our pick 3: Desktop splitting and merging with no upload, and a policy that states plainly that no PDF content is sent to their servers.
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Our pick 7: Free, open source, no subscription and no bundled software. The reader to install when you want nothing else installed.
Choosing between them
- DocuSign vs Dropbox Sign The two best-known e-signature services.
- What to use instead of DocuSign
Every listing here is a real product with a real website, checked for whether it is still working. Nothing on this page is paid for and no placement can be bought. Where we have not verified something, the row says so rather than guessing.
Choosing between signing it yourself and sending it out
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Putting your signature on it yourself
A drawn or typed mark placed on the page. Fast, and usually all that is needed inside an organisation that already trusts you.
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Sending it for somebody else to sign
A workflow with invitations, reminders and an audit trail. This is a different product from a signing tool, and it is the one that carries the evidence.
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A visible mark against a certificate
A drawn signature is a picture of a signature and proves nothing cryptographically. A digital signature carries a certificate and shows whether the document changed after signing. Plenty of tools do the first while sounding like the second.
Check the result
- - Ask what the signature actually is. If it can be copied into another document and still look valid, it is a picture.
- - Check whether the document was locked after signing, or whether the fields can still be edited.
- - Open the signed file in a different reader and look for the signature panel, which is where a certificate shows up.
- - Find out how long the signed document is kept, because signed documents often have different retention terms from ordinary uploads.
Sources and scope
Every fact on this page comes from a vendor's own page. Each profile records the URL we read, the date, and the SHA-256 of the text, so a reader can check the bytes.
- SignNow 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- DocuSign 2 sourced claims, read 21 September 2026
- Dropbox Sign 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PandaDoc 2 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- Documenso 2 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- DocuSeal 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Apryse 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Aspose.PDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- DocHub 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Nitro PDF Pro 1 sourced claim, read 21 September 2026
- Nutrient 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDF Expert 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDF Studio 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Power PDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- SignWell 2 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- Syncfusion PDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Apple Preview 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Adobe Acrobat 4 sourced claims, read 21 September 2026
- Adobe PDF Library 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- Apache PDFBox 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- Foxit PDF SDK 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- IronPDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- No Fuss PDF 5 sourced claims, read 29 September 2026
- OpenSign 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Wondershare PDFelement 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- Foxit PDF Editor 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Bluebeam Revu 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- GroupDocs 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- iLovePDF 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- Master PDF Editor 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDF Architect 2 sourced claims, read 21 September 2026
- PDF-XChange Editor 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Smallpdf 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Soda PDF 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- Spire.PDF 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- PDF-XChange Core API SDK 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- AvePDF 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- JPedal 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- LEADTOOLS PDF SDK 3 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- MuPDF (mutool) 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDFgear 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Pdftools SDK 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- ABBYY FineReader PDF 2 sourced claims, read 21 September 2026
- LibreOffice Draw 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PrizmDoc 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- CamScanner 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDF Candy 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDF2Go 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- SimplePDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Stirling PDF 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- Microsoft Edge PDF reader 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Scanner Pro 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- SwiftScan 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Okular 2 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- Google Chrome built-in PDF viewer 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDFsam 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- SumatraPDF 1 sourced claim, read 22 September 2026
- PDFescape 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- iText 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- fpdf2 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- ICEpdf 2 sourced claims, read 18 October 2026
- pdfRest 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- Qoppa Java PDF SDK 2 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- Telerik Document Processing Libraries 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
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