Instead of Foxit PDF Reader
Foxit PDF Reader alternatives
Foxit PDF Reader is a free reader for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and the web. It views, annotates, fills, and signs PDFs, including Acroforms and XFA forms. Shared reviews, comments, cloud-storage connections, and integrations with Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, and DocuSign support collaborative work. Desktop offline access, text-to-speech, and security controls such as Protected View add practical options. Foxit also offers a free 14-day trial of Foxit PDF Editor, while the reader itself has no OCR support.
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MuPDF
Free plan AndroidiPhoneLinux+4Developers embedding broad document operations — MuPDF is an embeddable SDK adding extraction, redaction, conversion, splitting, merging, and compression beyond Foxit’s reader.
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Kiosk
Free plan Open source AndroidExtensioniPhone+5Private, offline reading across browsers and devices — Kiosk processes PDFs on-device without telemetry, cloud processing, or accounts, and adds a Chrome extension with annotation tools.
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StarForce Reader
Free plan AndroidiPhoneLinux+2Reading protected SFPDF and PCDOC files — StarForce Reader views protected SFPDF and PCDOC files and can play protected videos on mobile, unlike Foxit’s stated PDF focus.
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Javelin PDF Reader
Free plan AndroidiPhoneMac+1DRM-secured PDFs with publisher controls — Javelin reads Drumlin DRM PDFs with copying, printing, expiry, and dynamic watermark controls beyond Foxit’s reader features.
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Okular
Free plan LinuxMacWindowsFree multi-format reading on desktop systems — Okular supports PDF plus EPUB, DjVU, Markdown, image, and comic formats while also offering annotations, forms, and text-to-speech.
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Komodo PDF
Free plan LinuxMacWindowsLocal document questions with page citations — Komodo PDF adds a local AI panel that retrieves passages and links answers to highlighted page citations, unlike Foxit’s reader.
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Launchpad
Free plan APILinuxSelf-hosted+1 - 9
Mozilla PDF.js
Free plan APIExtensionLinux+2 - 10
Aiseesoft Free PDF Viewer
Free plan Windows - 11
Evince
Free plan Linux - 12
Highlights
Free plan iPhoneMac - 13
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Free plan AndroidiPhoneMac+2 - 14
LiquidText
Free plan MacWindows - 15
XpdfReader
Free plan LinuxMacWindows - 16
Papers
Free plan Linux - 17
Skim
Free plan Mac - 18
SumatraPDF
Free plan Windows - 19
Zathura
Free plan LinuxMac - 20
Papers
Free plan Linux - 21
Preview
Free plan Mac - 22
GoodReader
Paid iPhoneMac5.7 Visit site - 23
Xreader
Free plan Linux
An alternative may fit better when you need OCR, document conversion, broader file support, local processing, protected-document playback, or an embeddable component. MuPDF targets developers and adds extensive document operations; Kiosk keeps PDFs on-device and works as a browser extension; StarForce and Javelin handle protected formats and controls. KDAN PDF adds editing, OCR, conversion, and form creation. Okular reads several document, image, and comic formats, while Komodo PDF adds locally indexed, citation-linked document questions. Compare platform coverage, privacy, annotation, form, editing, protection, and licensing needs before switching.