Docusign vs. Adobe Sign (now Adobe Acrobat Sign)

Docusign vs. Adobe Sign FAQs

• What's the difference between Docusign eSignature and Adobe Sign?

  Docusign is the one innovative platform you can trust with all of your agreements. We remove the friction in the agreement process and help you build trust, by adding intelligence to the process. This makes it easier for people to negotiate, make decisions faster and understand the risks involved. 

  With Docusign, you can remove friction from your entire agreement process—not just the electronic signature part of the process.

  Adobe Acrobat Sign offers simple e-signatures, but it can’t help address the larger challenge organizations face with their agreement workflows. 

  Docusign can help with identity verification for signers, document generation, automated agreement workflows, agreement storage and more in addition to electronic signatures.

  Docusign can also help you unlock the data that lives in your agreements. We help you extract the data from your contracts, search it and use it to make smarter business decisions. See when vendor contracts are coming up for renewal, easily find out how new legislation affects clauses of your existing agreements and more. Meanwhile, agreements in Adobe act like flat digital pieces of paper and don’t allow you the opportunity to gain this valuable business intelligence.

• Why choose Docusign over Adobe?

  With Docusign, you can take advantage of a full suite of products to make your agreement processes smarter, easier and more trusted.

  Docusign has products beyond simple e-signature to help you generate documents, verify signer identity, review and negotiate contracts, sign agreements, automate agreement workflows, store and manage agreements, and analyze agreements.

• What does Adobe say about Docusign?

  Adobe claims they are better because they have no extra fees, integrations with Microsoft 365 and plans with Acrobat with all-in-one document productivity. 

  In fact, Docusign has flexible plans so you pay for only what you need. 

  We also have a strategic partnership with Microsoft, including Microsoft 365 integrations. Docusign is Microsoft's preferred solution on Microsoft AppSource, representing a commitment to quality, performance and the ability to meet the needs of mutual customers. With Docusign integrations for Microsoft, your team can prepare, sign, collaborate, store and manage agreements within Microsoft apps, boosting productivity and accelerating the completion of agreements.

  And we offer all-in-one agreement productivity that goes across document types and your existing systems so you can easily incorporate agreement workflows into your other processes.

• Is Docusign HIPAA compliant?

  Docusign eSignature includes features that can support your HIPAA compliance requirements. HIPAA doesn’t mandate the way documents are signed, but an electronic signature doesn’t constitute compliance on its own. HIPAA governs the use and transmission of protected health information (PHI). When considering e-signature for HIPAA-governed information, there are specific features to look for to support HIPAA compliance efforts. Healthcare organizations are ultimately responsible for implementing technologies, policies and procedures to ensure that these solutions are deployed in a way that is secure and protects PHI.

  Modern e-signature solutions like Docusign eSignature that are interoperable with Electronic Health Records (EHRs) make it easy for patients to electronically sign forms on a device, in a medical office or inpatient at a facility. Electronic signatures have many layers of security and authentication built into them, ensuring information remains private and secure.

  Unlike wet signatures, e-signatures include an electronic record that serves as an audit trail and proof of the transaction. The audit trail details the actions taken with the document, including a record of when it was opened, viewed and signed. Docusign eSignature offers a certificate of completion that includes specific details about each signer on the document, including the consumer disclosure indicating the signer agreed to use e-signature, the signature image, key event timestamps and the signer's IP address and other identifying information.

  Once the signing process is complete, all documents are digitally sealed using Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), an industry-standard technology. This seal indicates the electronic signature is valid and that the document hasn’t been tampered with or altered since the date of signing.

  
  Learn More About Using E-Signature to Help Manage HIPAA Compliance.

• Why is Docusign so popular?

  More than 1 billion users and 1 million customers trust Docusign with their agreements.

  With highly secure encryption standards, rigorous security certifications, and complete digital audit trails, Docusign gives you total confidence in every transaction. 

  Docusign eSignature is also the highest-ranked e-signature app in Salesforce AppExchange and is rated 98 out of 100 for ease of use, according to public reviews on G2.com.

  Docusign helps you make your agreements smarter and easier.

  Streamline complex contract workflows in a centralized platform—preparing, signing, managing, and analyzing—so that contracting is smarter and goes beyond just a signature. Achieve faster time to value and avoid arduous implementation efforts by integrating quickly with APIs and more than 900 connectors. 

  Make it easy for anyone to agree, from within the tools and systems they use every day, by delivering a consistent and seamless experience on any device, including smartphones and tablets.

• Why is Adobe better than Docusign?

  In short, it’s not. Docusign has strong security, a highly rated mobile app and an integrated agreement ecosystem.

  Adobe has many products, and Adobe Sign is just one of them. In contrast, agreements are what we do. We have invested significantly in our agreement innovation, regularly releasing features and products to help our customers make their agreements smarter, easier and more trusted. 

  We offer system event monitoring, unlike Adobe Sign, so you can be on top of potential threats to your agreement data. 

  We’ve gotten feedback from our customers that integrating Adobe Sign with existing homegrown systems is hard and causes challenges for IT teams and lost employee productivity.