Because both products share one codebase, an option you cannot see in Draftable Business is usually a Draftable Legal feature rather than a fault. Upgrading the licence enables it in place, keeping your existing settings.
The short answer
Draftable Business produces Side-by-Side comparisons. It is built for general business users who need to see what changed between two documents, quickly and accurately, without a document management system behind them. Draftable Legal adds every other comparison output, all of the document management system (DMS) integrations, and the deep markup and profile customization that legal document production depends on. If you need a Word or PDF redline, a tracked changes document, or an integration with iManage, NetDocuments, SharePoint, Worldox or Epona, you need Draftable Legal.Comparison outputs
This is the largest single difference between the two products, and the one customers notice first. Draftable Business is restricted to the Side-by-Side output. Every other comparison output is a Draftable Legal feature.
Because Draftable Business only has one output available, the output selection controls are hidden rather than shown and disabled. Business users do not choose an output type before comparing; they simply compare, and the Side-by-Side viewer opens.
DMS integrations
Draftable Legal integrates with five document management systems. Draftable Business includes none of them. Each integration is licence-gated in the same way, so there is no partial or read-only mode in Business.
In Draftable Business, the Integrations tab in Settings is not displayed at all. This is expected behaviour, not a configuration problem. If you have deployed DMS settings by Group Policy to a machine running a Business licence, those settings are written but never read.
Draftable Legal also supports iManage auto log-in, so users are not prompted for DMS credentials each session, and can be configured for multiple iManage tenancies.
Markup, profiles and customization
Draftable Legal is where document production teams standardise how a redline looks across a firm. Draftable Business keeps a fixed, sensible default.
In Draftable Business the redline markup scheme is forced to the default and the associated settings sections are hidden. The changes markup theme for the Side-by-Side viewer is still available to Business users, which is a separate setting controlling the colours you see on screen.
Document handling and engine options
OCR is a Draftable Legal feature. If you compare a scanned PDF in Draftable Business, no text layer is generated for you, and the comparison only reflects text the file already contains. This is a common source of “Draftable found no changes” reports on scanned documents.
Deployment and administration
Both products are enterprise-deployable, and this is where they are most alike.
Both products use the same three-tier settings priority, where a user policy overrides a computer policy, which overrides a user’s own setting.
The practical difference is how much there is to configure. Draftable Legal exposes a far larger settings surface because it has far more features. A Group Policy template applied to Draftable Business applies cleanly, but settings covering Legal-only features have no effect.
Workflow differences in practice
The feature tables above translate into a few day-to-day differences worth calling out.1
Starting a comparison
In Draftable Business, you select two files and compare. In Draftable Legal, you also choose a comparison type before running, because more than one output is available, and you may be selecting those files from a DMS rather than the file system.
2
Reviewing the result
Both products open the Side-by-Side viewer. Draftable Legal users can additionally produce a redline, a tracked changes document, a departures table or a changes report from the same comparison.
3
Sharing the result
Draftable Business users share the Side-by-Side output. Draftable Legal users typically share a redline PDF or a Word file with tracked changes, which is the format most legal workflows expect.
4
Saving back to a DMS
Only Draftable Legal can save a comparison result back into iManage, NetDocuments, SharePoint, Worldox or Epona. Draftable Business saves to the file system.
Which product is right for you?
Choose Draftable Business if you need fast, accurate, private document comparison for general business documents, you work from local or synced file storage, and the Side-by-Side viewer is how your team wants to review changes. Choose Draftable Legal if any of the following apply:- You produce redlines or tracked changes documents for others to review
- You store documents in a DMS
- You need OCR for scanned material
- You need to standardise redline appearance across a team or firm
- You need departures tables or changes reports