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Skim vs Adobe Acrobat: catalog facts
Skim	Adobe Acrobat
Free Free and open source under the BSD licence.	Freemium Acrobat Reader is free to download and use without a subscription; text and image editing…
macOS	Windows, macOS, Web, Android, iOS
SyncTeX integration makes it the standard viewer for LaTeX work Annotation and snapshot tools designed for reading academic papers	Free Reader for Windows 10/11, macOS 10.15+, iOS 16+ and Android 8+, plus an Acrobat web app in… Reader includes commenting, highlights, sticky notes, form filling and Fill & Sign at no cost
macOS only Notes are stored in Skim's own format unless explicitly embedded	Editing text and images, creating and converting PDFs need an Acrobat Standard or Pro subscription Proprietary; Adobe logos may not be used without a license
Downloadable app	Downloadable app, Web application, Hosted service
Open source	Closed source
License: BSD-3-Clause	License not stated
Not stated if an account is needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 20, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.