Preview vs Smallpdf
as AI assistants see them, week of 2026-09-21
Preview and Smallpdf are neck and neck overall, each named in 21 of 68 answers, with Smallpdf edging ahead on overall score (18 vs 17). Preview's strongest showing is as a Mac PDF editor, named in all 3 answers to that question, while Smallpdf dominates PDF compression, named in 4 of 4 answers, and shows up in 3 of 4 answers for browser-based editing. Head-to-head, Smallpdf comes out ahead slightly more often (5 questions to Preview's 4), with 11 ties. By assistant, Claude rates Preview higher (35 vs 21), while Perplexity favors Smallpdf (27 vs 13). Neither tool is ever named for AI PDF chat, OCR, open-source options, Windows editing, or privacy-focused use.
Head to head
| metric | Preview | Smallpdf |
|---|---|---|
| score | 17 | 18 |
| questions won | 12 | 12 |
By assistant
Preview
| assistant | score | named in, this week | usual spot, this week |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 4 | 5% of answers | #3.0 |
| Claude | 35 | 55% of answers | #4.8 |
| Gemini | not sampled this week | ||
| Perplexity | 13 | 20% of answers | #5.0 |
Smallpdf
| assistant | score | named in, this week | usual spot, this week |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 8 | 10% of answers | #2.5 |
| Claude | 21 | 45% of answers | #8.6 |
| Gemini | not sampled this week | ||
| Perplexity | 27 | 40% of answers | #4.1 |
Where they differ
Only Preview gets named for
- What's the best PDF editor for Mac?
- What's the best tool to edit a PDF without a subscription?
Only Smallpdf gets named for
- What's the best tool to convert a PDF to Word or Excel?
- What's the best PDF editor app for iPhone or Android?
More comparisons
- Preview vs Stirling PDF
- Preview vs Sejda
- PDF Expert vs Preview
- PDF-XChange Editor vs Preview
- Smallpdf vs Stirling PDF
- Sejda vs Smallpdf
Not sold on either?
Scores count how often each assistant names a product, weighted by position. How the score works · Full PDF editors leaderboard