Apryse, formerly PDFTron, is one of the most complete document platforms available: viewing, annotation, forms, redaction, OCR, conversion, and digital signatures, across web, mobile, server, and a long list of languages. Polotno SDK is narrower on purpose. It is a design editor you embed in your app, built on a JSON schema, which reads PDFs into editable layers and writes them back out. The question that decides it: do you process documents, or do your users design them?
Pick the one that matches the job
Pick Apryse if…
- You are processing documents rather than designing them. Splitting, merging, OCR, classification, and extraction are the platform's home ground.
- You need the compliance features. Secure redaction, digital signatures, PDF/A archiving, and accessibility tagging carry legal weight that a design tool cannot claim.
- You want a native library in your backend language. Apryse ships .NET, Java, Python, C++, Go, PHP, Ruby, and Node.js, plus iOS and Android. Polotno's packages are JavaScript and TypeScript.
- You need a faithful viewer. Rendering the file as authored, including annotations and form state, is its core competence.
- The file has to stay the same PDF. Apryse works on the document itself and has APIs for structure such as bookmarks. A Polotno import rebuilds each page as a design and drops that structure.
Pick Polotno SDK if…
- Your users design the documents. The surface is a design canvas with layers, templates, fonts, and asset panels.
- You generate personalized designs at volume. Certificates, invoices, tickets, and labels from one template plus a data row, through the Cloud Render API or on your own servers. Apryse merges data into Office and HTML templates. Polotno templates are designs authored on a canvas.
- PDF is one format among many. The same schema exports PNG, JPEG, SVG, HTML, PPTX, GIF, and MP4 in the browser or on your own servers.
- You want print-ready output without a print stack. CMYK, spot colors, bleed, crop marks, and PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-4 from PDF export.
Breadth of platform vs fit for the job
1. Breadth against depth
Apryse covers more of the document lifecycle than Polotno does, across 30+ file types including PDF, Office, and CAD. Polotno covers the authoring end, with a canvas your end users work on directly. If you want one vendor for everything that happens to a document, that is Apryse. If you want one surface where your users design, that is Polotno.
2. What "editing a PDF" means
In Apryse, you edit the PDF itself. You can work on pages and form values, and content editing, a separate add-on, changes text and images inside the file in the browser. The result stays a PDF.
Polotno parses the PDF into a design, and you edit that. Text becomes text elements you can restyle and move with the rest of the layout, and you export a new file. Choose Apryse when the file has to stay the file, and Polotno when your users are redoing the page.
3. Language and platform reach
This is often the first filter and the fastest one. Apryse runs almost anywhere. Polotno runs in browsers, Node, and Electron, and reaches iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter through a WebView rather than a native SDK.
A .NET backend cannot run Polotno's Node packages, so server-side work there goes through the Cloud Render API over REST. If you want the document library running inside your .NET process, pick Apryse.
Feature comparison
| Capability | Polotno SDK | Apryse |
|---|---|---|
| File types | Imports PDF, SVG, and PSD (beta) | 30+, including PDF, Office, and CAD |
| Editing a PDF | Imported as a design, exported as a new file | In place, with a content-editing add-on |
| Backend languages | JavaScript and TypeScript, or REST through Cloud Render | .NET, Java, Python, C++, Go, PHP, Ruby, Node.js |
| Where it runs | Cloud Render API, your servers, or the browser. Design content reaches Polotno servers only if you use Cloud Render or AI features | Typically a licensed library you host |
| Mobile | WebView guides, and you maintain the bridge | Native iOS and Android SDKs |
| Redaction | None | Removes content, as an add-on |
| Digital signatures | None | Yes, as an add-on |
| OCR | None | OCR and ICR |
| PDF/A | Not in our docs | Converts and validates, as an add-on |
| Design canvas for your users | Layers, templates, and asset panels | Not its focus |
| Export formats | PNG, JPEG, PDF, SVG, HTML, PPTX, GIF, MP4. Cloud Render: PNG, JPEG, PDF, PPTX, GIF, MP4 | Conversion across its supported file types |
| CMYK, spot colors, bleed, crop marks, PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-4 | Overprint rendering, imposition, and crop and bleed box edits. The SDK has no PDF/X features, and Apryse points PDF/X users to its iText and PDFlib products | |
| Pricing model | Fixed license fee by custom quote, Cloud Render billed per use | Modular |
When Apryse is the right call
If your product's job is to handle whatever document a user throws at it (read it, extract from it, sign it, archive it, prove something about it) buy Apryse. The compliance surface in particular is not something to improvise. A design editor that deletes an element is not performing redaction, and treating it as if it were would be a real risk rather than a feature gap.
It is also the right call when your backend is not JavaScript and you want the document library in-process, or when you need Office and CAD files alongside PDF.
If your users design documents, evaluate Polotno with the 30-day free trial, no credit card needed.
A note on the name
Apryse was PDFTron until 2023. Older comparisons, job posts, and Stack Overflow answers still use the old name. Both names refer to the same product.
FAQ
What happens to a scanned PDF?
It imports as images with no text to edit. Polotno also drops an invisible OCR text layer added by another tool, so the JSON matches what a PDF reader shows.
Which produces better print output?
They aim at different jobs. Polotno's print path is built around design work, and the preflight tool lets you check a file without writing code. Apryse's works on existing PDFs, with imposition and page box edits, and its conformance tools target PDF/A.
Can I merge PDFs with Polotno?
Yes. You can concatenate pages through the schema, and the merge tool does that. It does not keep form fields, bookmarks, annotations, or internal links. If those must survive, test a document library on your own files.
