pdfFiller for Enterprise vs Nitro PDF: Which Solution is Best for Your Business?
The pandemic changed the balance of power on the document management software market, leading to the emergence of powerful solutions like pdfFiller for Enterprise. The niche dominated by big players like Adobe Cloud and Nitro is becoming more competitive. Today, businesses need to have a clear picture of which PDF editor will be the best fit for their document workflows in the months to come.
Throughout the process of recovering after the pandemic, enterprises were often forced to cut costs, and not only by laying off staff. Offices are getting smaller, branches are fewer and farther between, and cuts are also expected in areas such as business travel expenditures, office procurement, and even software budgets.
If you’ve come to that point when you are not particularly happy with the document editing and/or document management solution used in your organization, it’s time to look into the available alternatives.
This blog aims to compare industry-leading document management platforms – pdfFiller for Enterprise and Nitro PDF. Previously, we compared pdfFiller against market-leading PDF solutions for business, such as Foxit PDF Editor and Adobe Acrobat. In this blog, we’ll walk you through the features, pricing, security and compliance, and other relevant information to make the selection process easier for you.
Take note: The information below would be useful not only for those who are inclined to switch from Nitro to an alternative solution, but also for those considering enterprise-level alternatives to the Adobe Cloud.
Table of Contents
1. General Information
2. Nitro PDF vs pdfFiller for Enterprise: Product Overview
3. Nitro PDF vs pdfFiller for Enterprise: In-depth Comparison & What Users Say
4. The Verdict: pdfFiller for Enterprise or Nitro PDF?
General Information
pdfFiller
On the market since 2008, Boston-based pdfFiller for Enterprise boasts impressive usability statistics: over 2M people visit its site every year, with over 20,000 forms created, edited, and filed every day. The target audience of pdfFiller is vast — from private users (prosumers mostly) to Fortune 500 companies. Today, pdfFiller is known as a part of airSlate’s suite of digital tools.
Nitro PDF
Founded in Australia back in 2005 (now headquartered in San Francisco), Nitro PDF editor has some impressive stats as well: more than 3M licensed users with 13,000+ business customers, many of whom are also in the Fortune 500. Among the target audience of Nitro PDF, you will certainly find a number of business people who, at some point, decided to switch from Adobe (below we’ll explain why).
Now let’s have a look under the hood.
Nitro PDF vs pdfFiller for Enterprise: Product Overview
Since our goal here is to find the best-fit document solution for enterprise-level operations, we’re intentionally skipping the lowest tiers to compare the packages for larger companies (10+ employees working with documents on a daily basis) — pdfFiller’s Basic for Enterprise on the one hand and Nitro PDF Pro plans on the other. Both software solutions have free trial periods. pdfFiller for business is offering a free 30-day trial, while Nitro PDF offers 14 days.
pdfFiller for Enterprise Features
pdfFiller’s Basic for Enterprise costs $8 per user per month (or $96 per user per year). The key features of this plan, apart from the obvious and expected PDF editing, include PDF annotation, automatic fields detection, direct delivery of the selected tax forms to the IRS, and access to its online library of 25M ready-made forms and templates.
The Premium for Enterprise plan, which costs $15 per user per month (or $180 per user per year), features custom branding, SSO, audit trails, and premium support. The Premium plan also provides access to the enterprise-grade eSignature solution, thus allowing users to send PDFs for signature with signNow. This feature is not available in the Basic plan for Enterprise. On the other hand, Nitro PDF sells separately from Nitro Sign, so businesses need to buy a Productivity platform with higher sales checks.
It also needs mentioning that pdfFiller for Enterprise complies with global security standards and certifications such as HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, and SOC 2 Type II. As for HIPAA, this Enterprise feature is not available via self-serve, so users purchase it as an add-on.
Take note: In our recent blog covering the subscription plans of pdfFiller for Enterprise in more detail, you can learn more about the features and benefits of this PDF editor for business. Also, you can find out how pdfFiller for Enterprise eliminates printing costs and facilitates the paperless office transition for organizations.
Nitro PDF Features
Nitro’s pricing policy is a bit more complicated. For starters, the cost of their subscription-based plan recommended for 20+ users is not publicly available (at least it is not disclosed on their official site). According to some of the review platforms, G2 included, the cost of this plan is $9.99 per user per month. The key features of this plan are file conversion and an unlimited number of eSignature requests.
Another interesting thing about Nitro PDF pricing is the significant difference between Windows and Mac solutions. Nitro PDF Pro for Windows starts at $249.99, while Nitro PDF Pro Essentials for Mac starts at $129.99 (because the Mac version is somewhat limited). On the other hand, this is a one-time license, and these plans are actually recommended (by the vendor itself) for smaller teams only, not large organizations.
To sum up, pdfFiller offers an entire month for a free trial which is a significant benefit for larger teams and those lines of business where document preparation is not part of daily life. In other words, you get sufficient time to decide.
Nitro’s one-time license looks tempting overall. However, 14 days might not be enough time to decide whether you need this office solution for good.
Nitro PDF vs pdfFiller for Enterprise: In-depth Comparison & What Users Say
The key benefit, or competitive advantage is a rather subjective category. And the best way to measure and compare subjective assessments of software products is through customer reviews. For the purposes of our analysis, we have used the latest (Summer 2022) data by G2, where both pdfFiller by airSlate and Nitro PDF Productivity are present in the same three product categories: PDF editors, Document Creation, and Electronic Signature.
The overall ranking of the software tools in question is almost the same. However, the Nitro PDF editor has a significantly lower number of business reviews (which is, to some extent, indicative of the lower business interest in the product overall).
Looking at the cross-feature analysis, we can’t help but note that pdfFiller wins over the competition by every parameter that is an important decision-making factor when enterprises choose their document software. The differences are especially drastic insofar as ease of software administration, support quality, performance and reliability, and also the availability of an API and other integrations.
The differences in Support and Customer Care were also noted by some customers who recently switched from Nitro to pdfFiller as a Nitro PDF alternative:
Security and Compliance
Here again, let’s start with the customers’ assessments:
The difference in scores is again in favor of pdfFiller.
At first glance, Nitro PDF, with its one-time licensing options, is a typical offline software product, and offline solutions are often perceived as being more protected from data breaches than cloud-based ones.
On the other hand, customer usability statistics clearly show an active interest in having the option of an audit trail and document history, which are both an integral part of the security & compliance standards and court-admissible evidence. And none of these features could be fully available with offline desktop solutions.
On a separate note, Nitro’s security page mentions SOC2 and HIPAA certifications as well as GDPR compliance. While pdfFiller’s security page, apart from SOC2, HIPAA, and GDPR, also features FERPA and CCPA compliance.
pdfFiller for Enterprise offers solutions tailored to your organization’s needs!
Choose the right plan for your business.
Customer Validation and Social Proof
To add some diversity to our sources, let’s quickly overview what customers have to say on other review platforms since G2 is not the only credible source of unbiased reviews online.
Trustradius:
pdfFiller
Nitro Pro
Software advice:
pdfFiller
Nitro Pro
If we move down from the corporate to the B2C segment, another curious observation is the number of individual ratings from users, self-employed, and microbusinesses.
On TrustPilot, pdfFiller is ranked as Excellent, with 4.6 stars out of 5.0:
While Nitro only has seven consumer reviews with a TrustScore as low as 2.3:
The situation is the same on the BBB’s site (Better Business Bureau, an international association dealing with consumer awareness and marketplace trust issues).
According to Better Business Bureau, the Nitro PDF editor has a rating as low as 1.5/5 and received the grade of F by the BBB:
Meanwhile, pdfFiller by airSlate is rated 4.72/5, with a B in the overall business ranking (note the total number of consumer reviews):
Consumer rankings might not be the most decisive factor when enterprises and other large organizations are making their software choices, yet, they tend to reveal how successful and flexible the software vendors are when it comes down to daily communications with their clients.
The Verdict: pdfFiller for Enterprise or Nitro PDF?
Generally speaking, the PDF editors we’ve analyzed here have a very similar feature set. Both Nitro PDF and pdfFiller for Enterprise offer:
- PDF editing, page management, and file conversion
- eSignature solution (in case with Nitro, you need to get it for extra cost)
- Document review and annotation tools
- Clean and intuitive interface
The choice between the two would mostly depend on the profile of the average user in your organization and also on what sort of additional features you would like to have as extra perks of your annual or monthly package.
Nitro PDF is the perfect fit for your organization if:
- many people on your team have been using Adobe for a while and you’re looking to minimize the learning curve;
- you anticipate that teamwork in the cloud might be a problem (for a range of technical and individual reasons);
- you’re looking for a cross-platform solution;
- you believe that one-time licensing is the best pricing option in your particular case. Take note that all updates are paid in case of purchasing the one-time license, so users are not getting updates and software might be outdated in a few months. One-time license is a good option for mature organizations that are not actively hiring, have lower turnover rates, and are not generally inclined to test drive what’s new and trendy on the software market.
pdfFiller for Enterprise is a perfect fit for your organization if:
- you would like to keep your options open in terms of pricing (monthly or annual) and the number of seats needed for your organization;
- library of ready-made forms and templates would be beneficial for your sales managers and/or office assistants. pdfFiller’s Library of Forms currently has over 25M forms. Additionally, pdfFiller also offers access to US Legal Forms, the largest online library of state-specific legal forms;
- your organization is already using several other software solutions and you are interested in having a PDF editor as a built-in integration, an API solution, or a Zapier integration.
Finally, don’t forget these solutions feature free trials that allow you to test them for yourself and decide based on your experiences.