What's the best alternative to Adobe Acrobat for editing PDFs?

If you want the closest all-around alternative to Adobe Acrobat for PDF editing, the best pick for most people is Foxit PDF Editor.

Why Foxit is a strong alternative

• Edit text and images directly in PDFs
• Create, convert, merge, and annotate PDFs
• Good form filling and OCR support
• Generally lighter and cheaper than Acrobat
• Works on Windows and Mac

Other good options depending on your needs

• Nitro PDF Pro — great for business users; strong editing and conversion tools
• PDFelement — usually cheaper; good balance of features and ease of use
• ABBYY FineReader PDF — best if OCR and scanned-document editing are your priority
• PDF-XChange Editor — excellent value on Windows; powerful, but a bit less polished
• Preview (Mac) — built in and free, but only basic editing

Quick recommendation

• Best overall Acrobat replacement: Foxit PDF Editor
• Best budget pick: PDF-XChange Editor (Windows) or PDFelement
• Best for scans/OCR: ABBYY FineReader PDF

If you want, I can also recommend the best one based on your OS, budget, and whether you need text editing, OCR, or e-signatures.