Adobe vs Salesforce, side by side
Both are large US software companies that offer their products by subscription, so customers pay to use them month after month rather than paying once. What they make is different. Adobe builds creative and document software - Photoshop, PDF tools and digital-marketing products - used by designers and marketers. Salesforce builds customer-relationship-management software that sales and service teams use to track customers and deals. Both now face questions about how AI reshapes their tools.
On our factor screen it looks strongest on quality and value, and weakest on income.
On our factor screen it looks strongest on growth and income, and weakest on momentum.
The numbers, side by side
| Measure |  Adobe Inc. |  Salesforce, Inc. |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $250.41 | $184.02 |
| Market cap: The company's total value on the stock market - share price times the number of shares. Big = 'large-cap', small = 'small-cap'. | $99.54B | $150.71B |
| P/E: Price-to-earnings: the share price divided by yearly profit per share. Lower can mean cheaper; higher often means investors expect fast growth. | 14.2 | 20.9 |
| Div yield: Dividend yield: the yearly dividend as a percentage of the share price - roughly the income you'd earn just from dividends. | 0.0% | 1.0% |
| Revenue growth | 12.7% | 13.3% |
| 1Y: How much the share price has moved over the past year. | -31% | -30% |
More measures
| Forward P/E: Price-to-earnings: the share price divided by yearly profit per share. Lower can mean cheaper; higher often means investors expect fast growth. | 9.1 | 11.9 |
|---|---|---|
| Net margin | 28.7% | 18.7% |
| ROE | 63.0% | 16.9% |
| Beta: How bumpy the share price is versus the whole market. Above 1 swings more than the market; below 1 is calmer. It's about the ride, not whether it goes up or down. | 1.43 | 1.18 |
The bolder figure is simply the larger of the two - higher is not automatically good (a higher P/E means more expectation in the price; a higher beta means bigger swings).
How they differ
Salesforce, Inc. is roughly 1.5x the size of Adobe Inc. by market value. On our factor screen Adobe Inc. currently screens higher on quality, while Salesforce, Inc. screens higher on income and growth. Salesforce, Inc. trades on the higher P/E (20.9 vs 14.2), so more expectation is already built into its price; and Salesforce, Inc. pays a dividend (1.0%) while Adobe Inc. pays little or none. Adobe Inc.'s shares have historically been the bumpier of the two (beta 1.43 vs 1.18).
Descriptive only - how the two compare on today's data, never a verdict on either.
Adobe Inc., in one line
Adobe is the creative powerhouse behind industry-standard software like Photoshop and Acrobat that helps people design, edit, and manage digital documents.
Read the full Adobe Inc. explainer →Salesforce, Inc., in one line
Salesforce provides cloud-based software that helps businesses manage their customer relationships, sales leads, and marketing campaigns all in one place.
Read the full Salesforce, Inc. explainer →What to weigh
If dividend income matters to you, the yields differ (0.0% Adobe Inc. vs 1.0% Salesforce, Inc.); and if sharp swings bother you, the betas differ (1.43 vs 1.18). These are facts to understand, not a verdict - read each full explainer before deciding anything.
Common questions
Are Adobe and Salesforce in the same business?
Both offer software by subscription to businesses, so financially they look similar, but their products serve different jobs. Adobe focuses on creative design, documents and digital marketing - think Photoshop and PDF. Salesforce focuses on customer-relationship management, the software sales and service teams use to track customers. They rarely compete on the same product.
What does 'SaaS' mean for these two?
SaaS stands for software as a service - customers pay a recurring subscription to use software over the internet instead of paying for it once upfront. Both Adobe and Salesforce run this way, which gives them steady, repeating revenue. It also means they must keep customers renewing, so retention and new features matter a great deal.