Key Differences
The most important difference between AI-Redact and Smallpdf is not a feature gap — it is a fundamental difference in what happens to your data. Smallpdf's "redaction" feature draws black rectangles over text in the PDF. The visual result looks correct, but the underlying text data remains embedded in the file. Anyone with a PDF editor, or even a simple copy-paste operation, can access the original content beneath the markup.
AI-Redact performs true redaction. When you redact a document, the sensitive text is permanently deleted from the PDF file structure. There is no hidden layer, no embedded original — the data is gone. This is the difference between cosmetic privacy and actual data protection.
Beyond the redaction method, AI-Redact uses machine learning to automatically detect PII across your entire document. Smallpdf requires you to manually locate and mark every piece of sensitive information yourself. For a 50-page contract with names, dates, and account numbers scattered throughout, automated detection is not just convenient — it is essential for thoroughness.
AI-Redact also supports OCR for scanned documents, batch processing for multiple files, and metadata removal — none of which are available in Smallpdf's redaction workflow. For anyone handling sensitive documents professionally, these capabilities are not optional.