Quick Comparison
| Feature | Snowball | Adobe Scan |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Contact management | PDF creation |
| Creates contacts | Automatically | Manual export |
| Voice notes | ||
| Follow-up reminders | ||
| Offline scanning | ||
| Smart tags | ||
| CRM integrations | 100+ | Adobe ecosystem |
| Output format | Contacts | PDF/JPEG |
Adobe Scan Creates Files, Not Contacts
Adobe Scan is excellent at creating clean PDFs from documents. It can scan business cards—but the output is a PDF or image file. You still have to manually extract contact information and enter it somewhere.
- Business cards become PDF files, not contact records
- No automatic contact creation or field extraction
- No relationship management features
- No voice notes for context
- No follow-up reminders
Key Differences
Contacts, Not Documents
Snowball creates real contact records with name, email, phone extracted automatically. Adobe Scan gives you a pretty PDF you have to process manually.
Relationship Context
Voice notes, tags, follow-up reminders. Remember the person, not just their contact info. Adobe Scan has no relationship features.
CRM Integration
Contacts flow to HubSpot, Salesforce, and 100+ tools. Adobe Scan saves to Adobe cloud—not your CRM.
Purpose-Built Accuracy
Snowball's AI is trained specifically for business cards. Adobe Scan uses general document OCR.
When Adobe Scan Makes Sense
- You need to scan documents into PDF format
- You want to archive business cards as images
- You're already in the Adobe ecosystem
- You need professional document scanning features
When to Choose Snowball
- You want business cards to become usable contacts
- You need voice notes and context capture
- You want follow-up reminders
- You need to sync to CRM systems
- You're focused on networking, not document management
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Adobe Scan export to contacts?
Adobe Scan can extract text from business cards, but creating actual contacts requires manual entry into another app. Snowball does this automatically.
Is Adobe Scan better for archiving cards?
If you want a visual archive of business cards as PDFs, Adobe Scan is better. If you want usable contacts, Snowball is better.
Which has better OCR?
Adobe Scan has excellent general OCR. Snowball's AI is specifically trained for business cards and extracts structured contact data more accurately.
Can I use both?
Yes. Use Adobe Scan for document archiving and Snowball for networking contacts. They serve different purposes.