Osd-Scan vs Adobe Scan: a free, private alternative compared

Adobe Scan is one of the best-known scanner apps, and for good reason: it turns phone photos into clean PDFs and recognises text. But many people look for an alternative because they don't want to create an account, don't want their documents in someone else's cloud, or need more PDF tools without a subscription.

Osd-Scan was built for exactly that. Here is an honest, side-by-side comparison.

Quick comparison

Comparison based on publicly available information as of October 2026. Check Adobe's website for its current plans.

Price and sign-up

Osd-Scan has no paid tier for scanning or PDF tools. There is no sign-up, no trial and no "upgrade to save" screen. You open the page and scan.

Adobe Scan is free to download, but you need to sign in before you can use it, and some advanced features are part of a paid Adobe subscription.

Privacy

This is the biggest difference. Osd-Scan runs the whole pipeline — edge detection, perspective correction, filters, OCR and PDF creation — on your own device. Contracts, ID cards, bank statements and medical letters never leave your phone or computer.

Adobe Scan stores your scans in Adobe Document Cloud so they sync across devices. That is convenient, but it means your documents live on someone else's server.

Scan quality

Both tools give you clean, straight, readable scans. Osd-Scan's camera finds the page edges live, draws a blue outline, and captures automatically when the paper is steady — then keeps scanning for the next page. You can fine-tune the crop with handles and choose between six filters:

• Auto color — keeps stamps and signatures in color
• Light text — rescues faded receipts and pencil notes
• Grayscale and Black & white — smaller, print-friendly files
• Whiteboard — removes glare and grey from boards
• Original — just cropped and straightened

Curved pages, for example from a thick book, can be flattened too.

OCR and text

Osd-Scan's OCR makes scanned PDFs searchable and lets you copy text, in 24 languages including Hebrew, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Chinese and Russian. You can also convert scans to Word or plain text with PDF to Word and PDF to Text.

PDF tools in the same place

After scanning, you often need to do something else with the file. Osd-Scan includes 24 free tools: merge, split, compress, sign, protect with a password, edit, redact, add page numbers and more — all without uploads.

Which one should you choose?

Choose Osd-Scan if you want a scanner that is completely free, needs no account, keeps your files on your device and works on any phone or computer.

Choose Adobe Scan if you already live in Adobe's ecosystem and want every scan synced to the cloud automatically.

Ready to try it? Open the free scanner — no download, no sign-up.