COMPARE
Nutrient offers frequent updates, full document and data control, and broad file type support for modern web apps. PDF.js Express restricts basic PDF features and charges for upgrades. Nutrient provides control, guarantees, a responsive support team, and building freedom.
PDF.js Express updates are rare. Nutrient Web SDK ships regularly, backed by a full product team and a roadmap built for the future — not patching the past.
Forums won’t unblock you. Nutrient offers real-time help from engineers who get production, plus global support to keep your team moving.
Nutrient works with TIFF, JPG, PNG, and Office files — no hacks, no extra tools. PDF.js Express locks you into one format.
PDF.js Express can change terms anytime. Nutrient offers stable licensing, clear terms, and long-term trust — no surprises.
PDF.js Express offloads essential functionality like flattening annotations to a paid REST API, introducing hidden costs and external dependencies into your architecture.
Beyond basic PDF viewing and markup, the platform lacks more advanced capabilities required for modern document workflows — forcing teams to build custom extensions, add dependencies, or switch tools mid-project.
Rendering performance may get noticeably weaker on mobile devices, which can impact user experience in responsive or hybrid applications.
PDF.js Express provides no contractual support. All issues are redirected to a public forum, where the team has no obligation to respond — a risk for teams operating in production environments.
As a low-tier offering under Apryse, PDF.js Express comes with ambiguity around long-term investment, updates, and ongoing maintenance.
PDF.js Express is designed as a constrained entry point, with intentionally withheld features to push users toward Apryse’s higher-cost products. This means you use a tool that’s underpowered by design.
Nutrient includes everything PDF.js Express offers — and more. The table below outlines key capabilities missing from PDF.js Express, highlighting its limitations compared to Nutrient Web SDK.
| Nutrient | PDF.js Express Viewer (Free) | PDF.js Express Plus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instant collaboration | | | |
| Freehand, free text, shape, and comment annotations | | | |
| Image and stamp annotations | | | |
| Watermarks | | | |
| User roles and permissions on annotations | | | |
| Measurement tools | | | |
| Parse or open preexisting annotations baked into a PDF | | | |
| Save annotations to an underlying PDF document | | | |
| UI customization | | | |
| Form fill | | | |
| Merge form data | | | |
| Programmatically prepopulate forms | | | |
| Extract form data and save separately | | | |
| Set fields to read-only | | | |
| Flatten form content | | | |
| Hand-drawn eSignatures | | | |
| Save eSignature templates | | | |
| Add eSignature fields to forms | | | |
| Digital signatures | | | |
| Document conversion | | | |
| Office file support | | | |
| Redaction | | | |
| Document comparison | | | |
| OCR | | | |
| PDF/A archiving | | | |
| PDF generation from HTML forms | | | |
| Content editing | | | |
| Salesforce, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams SDKs | | | |
Nutrient offers a potent suite of proprietary AI tools for sophisticated workflows, surpassing the capabilities of PDF.js and other competitors.
Key-value pair extraction for labeled information in unstructured and semi-structured documents.
Smart redaction engine that uses AI to identify and remove sensitive data from documents.
Table extraction engine to extract data from scanned and low-quality documents.
Read and write barcodes from various image formats, recognize orientation, and provide string values and bounding boxes.
FREE TRIAL
