Adobe Acrobat Sign vs Docusign eSignature

Adobe Acrobat Sign

All three eIDAS seal levels — Simple, Advanced and Qualified — are applied through the API itself, with four named trust service providers recognized under eIDAS and the CSC standard, qualified seals aimed at company documents such as invoices and statements, and qualified timestamps from named providers. The captured pages do not show which plans carry which level, the countries each level is available in, a linked EU Trust List entry, or the level appearing in the signed document and audit trail, so this stops short of the full picture.

Docusign eSignature

All three eIDAS levels are documented by name — simple signatures included on every plan, advanced in higher plans, qualified as an add-on to eSignature plans — and Docusign names itself as a registered qualified trust service provider in Europe whose tamper-proof certificates accompany every advanced signature. The pages fall short of the top level: we found no public information on the EU Trust List entry link, qualified electronic seals, per-level country availability, or the signature level shown in the finished document and audit trail.

Adobe Acrobat Sign

I found no public information on how signers are identified: none of the captured pages describes email or SMS authentication, video or bank identification, eID cards or wallets, who performs the identification, or what happens to identity data afterwards.

Docusign eSignature

The Identify portfolio documents its methods by name — one-time passcodes, phone authentication, automatic validation of government ID documents, biometric liveness via video selfies, and CLEAR or ID.me accounts for IAL2 — plus an identity wallet that reuses a completed verification on later agreements and a proof file compiling the results, with ID checks priced from 2.35 € each. We found no public information on country coverage per method, on retention and deletion of the ID data, or on the identification provider appearing as a named subprocessor.

Adobe Acrobat Sign

The captured pages describe a send-and-sign flow — send a document for e-signature, recipients sign on any desktop or device without downloads or accounts, the sender tracks document status, and approved documents are stored securely. Templates, field placement, signing order, reminders, bulk sending and roles are not described on these pages, which reads as a basic send-out-and-track workflow.

Docusign eSignature

Bulk send, delegated signing, mobile-optimised web forms with conditional logic and drag-and-drop building, custom branding, eWitness, 44+ signing languages and WCAG 2.0 Level AA in the plan comparison cover most of the advanced workflow range, with shared team templates and the no-code Workflow Builder on top. We found no public information on signer roles, parallel and sequential signing order, automatic reminders, or in-person signing.

Adobe Acrobat Sign

Qualified RFC 3161 timestamps from eight named providers, tamper detection after the seal is applied, verification of tamper-evident credentials through Adobe Acrobat, and archiving, search and OCR use cases cover much of what I need to archive sealed documents. An audit trail or completion certificate, long-term validation, retention periods and bulk export with evidence intact are not described on the captured pages.

Docusign eSignature

An audit trail is automatically generated and stored for every agreement, signatures carry tamper-evident PKI certificates, and identity checks compile into a proof file. This is the weak point for our archive requirement: we found no public information on the audit trail's contents and timestamps, long-term validation, a retention period for signed documents and their evidence, or bulk export with the evidence intact into a DMS.

Adobe Acrobat Sign

The API story is the strongest here: a REST API with a fully specified webhook endpoint service — OAuth 2.0 scopes for read, write and retention, full create-read-update-delete operations, custom headers, pagination and admin permissions — plus SDKs for Node.js, Java,.Net and Python with ready-to-run samples, every seal level applied through the API with no hardware modules, and an OEM/embedded partner track with access to private APIs. A sandbox, published rate limits, a versioning policy and named DMS, ERP or HR connectors are not shown on the captured pages, which is what holds it back.

Docusign eSignature

A Developer Centre with an API overview and a free developer account, forms embeddable into our own applications with our branding, API pre-population of fields, and named connectors with described scope — SharePoint send-sign-store with list data synchronised back, Dynamics 365, NetSuite, Salesforce, Outlook, Word, Teams and Power Automate — plus an App Center of 1000+ integrations give us a genuine embedding story. But we found no public information on webhooks, API versioning, published rate limits, SDKs, or whether qualified signatures can be triggered through the API rather than only the web app, and API plans are named with no prices attached.

Adobe Acrobat Sign

The provenance given with the evidence states that EU customers contract with Adobe Systems Software Ireland Limited while the parent is Adobe Inc. of San Jose, and ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type 2, FedRAMP Tailored and PCI DSS certifications are published. Storage locations for documents and audit trails, the hosting chain and the subprocessor list are not stated, so only the one European contracting element is proven.

Docusign eSignature

European elements are proven: a Dublin EMEA entity for privacy matters, data centres across three EU countries, registration as a European qualified trust service provider, and ISO 27001. However the contracting controller is Docusign, Inc. of San Francisco, personal data is stored in infrastructure that may span Australia, the United States, the EU and Canada, data residency is offered only through a sales contact, and we found no public information on ownership or the subprocessor chain.

Adobe Acrobat Sign

The only price point on the captured pages is the free tier: 500 free Document Transactions per month. I found no public information on paid plan prices, per-signature costs for advanced or qualified levels, identification fees, API pricing beyond the free tier, or contract term and notice period.

Docusign eSignature

The three main plans are fully priced with billing period and limits — Personal 9 €/month with 5 envelopes per month, Standard 23 €/month per user with 100 envelopes per user and year, Business Pro 38 €/month per user — plus identity checks from 2.35 € per ID check, overage fees, and auto-renewal with five business days' notice and no-refund terms in the published conditions. We found no published price for the qualified signature add-on or the API plans, and identity verification on its own product page sits behind a sales contact, so the cost of a qualified-signature volume is not computable from these pages.