Isaac Maw
Technical Content Creator
Updated February 25, 2026
5 min
Native Browser PDF Rendering vs Dedicated PDF SDKs
Isaac Maw
Technical Content Creator
For developers evaluating native browser PDF rendering vs dedicated PDF SDKs, the decision comes down to what your application actually needs to do with documents. If it's just displaying pages, the built-in viewer could work. If you need annotations, form filling, signatures, or redaction, you'll need more.
To meet these requirements, developers may consider native browser rendering first, but turn to dedicated PDF SDKs to meet specific requirements. In this article, we’ll examine the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, and why Apryse is the best choice among commercial PDF SDKs.
Why Native Browser Rendering Doesn’t Meet Requirements
Today’s browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari come with built-in PDF viewers, and developers can easily embed via <iframe> or <object> to use them. However, this approach comes with a few trade-offs that may be deal-breakers for your application.
Advantages
- Zero setup
- Fast and reliable for basic reading
Disadvantages
- No customizable UI
- No review features, such as annotations, forms, redaction, or signatures
- Inconsistent rendering across browsers
- Weak security controls
Best for: basic read-only PDFs
Choosing the Right PDF SDK
Once you've outgrown the built-in browser viewer, it's time to look at dedicated PDF SDKs, such as Apryse WebViewer. Dedicated PDF SDKs provide full-featured, high-fidelity PDF rendering. Let’s compare some popular options against Apryse WebViewer.
In-Browser PDF Rendering Solutions Compared
Native Browser PDF Viewer | Nutrient | Foxit | Apryse WebViewer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Engine | Google Chrome default viewer based on PDFium, other browsers vary | PDFium | Built in-house. The PDFium engine originated from the Foxit engine | Proprietary engine |
Rendering accuracy | Varies per browser | High-fidelity | High-fidelity | Consistent enterprise fidelity |
UI customization | None | Closed-source UI limits customization, WCAG 2.2 AA Compliant | Closed-source UI limits customization | High performance, highly customizable UI, WCAG 2.2 AA compliant |
Annotations | No | Basic, 17 out of the box, audit trails, import and export | Basic, 20+ out of the box, audit trails, import and export | Advanced, 30+ out of the box, audit trails, import and export |
Forms | Minimal | Basic filling, server required for editing & customization | Responsive field filling editing/ designing | Full forms engine, live field filling editing/designing, responsive UX |
Digital signatures | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Redaction tools | No | Server required | Permanent removal of underlying content, pattern search available | Permanent removal of underlying content, advanced search & redact |
Office Viewing | No | DoxJSON editing (Not DOCX), Viewing | Server required | DOCX Editing, Spreadsheet Editing, Viewing |
Rendering speed on large/complex PDFs | Hit or miss, supports linearization and flattening for “fast web view” | Moderate, includes linearization & flattening | Moderate, includes linearization & flattening | Optimized for large & complex documents using in-house engine, includes linearization, flattening and streaming |
Nutrient Web SDK
Nutrient is a PDF SDK offering client-side viewing, annotation, and editing. It uses a forked build of PDFium, Chromium’s open-source PDF rendering engine. This is the same engine that Chrome’s built-in PDF viewer uses.
This means that if your team has already tried embedding Chrome’s built-in browser and run into rendering, UI customizability or performance issues, Nutrient may not always solve these issues.
However, it should be noted that switching from the browser default PDF viewer would eliminate issues caused by multiple browsers. For example, Microsoft Edge PDF viewer is based on Adobe Acrobat, while Safari relies on Apple’s PDFKit. Switching to an integrated PDF SDK would still help reliability across browsers.
Strengths
- Polished, modern UI out of the box
- Broad file-format compatibility
- Supports a wide range of frameworks and languages
Limitations Compared to Apryse
- Based on forked PDFium, Nutrient does not have a proprietary rendering engine
- Meaning: compatibility and fidelity may vary by browser since PDFium itself evolves with Chromium.
- Fewer enterprise-oriented compliance features compared to Apryse.
- Server components often needed for heavier workflows, limiting in-browser utility.
Foxit
Foxit is best known for its end-user desktop PDF editor software, but also offers a PDF SDK based on an in-house, proprietary PDF engine. Foxit PDF SDK performs well for client-side viewing, including form viewing and filling support. However, the simple, limited SDK sometimes leads developers to switch to a new SDK as they grow beyond Foxit’s feature set.
Strengths
- Proprietary engine, unlike Nutrient
- Performs well for client-side viewing and linearization
- XFA form viewing and filling support
- Often used for simple use cases
Limitations compared to Apryse
- Limited advanced review features (annotations, signatures, etc.)
- Doesn’t scale beyond PDF format (Apryse offers DOCX, Spreadsheets, and CAD rendering)
- Apryse offers stronger community support and developer resources
Apryse WebViewer
Apryse WebViewer is a JavaScript PDF viewer/editor component that brings complete digital content viewing, collaboration, and document manipulation features to your web app via a single, flexible component that works in all frameworks and browsers.
Our advanced SDK supports digital content including PDF, Office, images, CAD, videos and websites, and integrates with platforms like Salesforce, Mendix, Appian, and SharePoint.
Because Apryse is built on our proprietary engine and offers the broadest set of document review, editing and collaboration functionality, it’s the best choice for your client-side PDF SDK.
Strengths
- Industry-grade fidelity and consistency
Because Apryse isn’t tied to PDFium or browser engines, documents render exactly the same in every environment, essential for legal, engineering, manufacturing, and government use cases.
- Deepest PDF feature set
Apryse is dedicated to building the SDK for all your document lifecycle needs, going beyond viewing. Many capabilities are available via add-ons, allowing you to scale as you grow. View our capabilities page to learn more.
- Security & deployment
- Fully offline, entirely client-side
- No server dependencies required
- Works air-gapped and in tightly regulated environments
- Robust permissions control and content security options
Learn more about Apryse Webviewer security here.
Developer experience
- Highly configurable UI
- Full control APIs
- Reliable long-term roadmap
- Support for a wide range of frameworks, platforms and languages
- Extensive documentation, code samples and support resources
Why Apryse for In-Browser PDF Viewing?
When the default browser PDF viewer no longer cuts it for your web application’s PDF viewing requirements, it’s time to consider commercial SDKs to get the best reliability, rendering fidelity and review features. Of course, these benefits must be balanced with cost and integration complexity.
Apryse WebViewer remains the best option when your requirements include:
- Absolute rendering consistency across all platforms
- Future extensibility, including enterprise-grade editing, redaction, signing, and workflow features
- Accessibility compliance, security, and fully offline operation
- High-fidelity, fast rendering of very large and complex files
- Full UI customizability
Use Case: Healthcare and Electronic Health Records
With stringent data privacy compliance requirements, large files such as imaging and patient records, and a large network of users, WebViewer is a powerful document SDK for the healthcare industry.
- Healthcare software developers leverage WebViewer features such as:
- secure collaboration
- interactive forms
- Digital signatures
- annotations
These tools enable manual and automated workflows to improve clinical data accuracy, security, and consistency across systems. With the ability to closely control document view and edit access permissions or redact sensitive information.
With client-side processing, WebViewer enables scalable digital self-service, for applications like telehealth and remote care. WebViewer’s accessible UI gives end users the ability to securely fill forms, view results and exchange documents from anywhere, on any browser.
Lastly, Apryse Server SDK offers Smart Data Extraction tools enable even more capabilities for healthcare, and works seamlessly with WebViewer.
Conclusion
Start building with WebViewer and get your free trial (no feature restrictions). Need help evaluating? Talk to our team.
