In fact, it’s a small component of a much larger Adobe family which has evolved through various iterations over time. Adobe Reader is not same as the Adobe Acrobat. It can be downloaded from the Adobe’s website absolutely free of cost or it can also be acquired from other sources as long as they are compliant with Adobe licensing requirements. It is a free cross-platform program which allows you to create PDF documents on one computer and view them on other computer with a PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader. This article explains the difference between the two PDF viewers on various fronts.Īdobe Reader is one small component of Acrobat developed by Adobe Systems to view and open PDF (Portable Document Format) files. Both can be used to view, print, comment, and search through documents with ease, but the Acrobat is the more advanced version of the Reader with the ability to create and edit existing documents. Both are very essential tools in today’s electronic workflow that can convert virtually any document to a PDF format while keeping the content intact with the original document. Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat are the two most popular PDF viewers developed and distributed by Adobe Systems Incorporated.