Top DocuSign Alternatives for Business in 2025

The demand for e-signature and digital signature solutions has surged in recent years, catalyzed by regulatory modernization, remote work trends, and global digital transformation initiatives. However, significant changes in the landscape—such as Adobe Sign’s exit from mainland China—have left businesses, especially in Asia-Pacific, reassessing their e-signature strategies. Enterprises are now confronted with the dual challenge of ensuring legal compliance under local legislation while maintaining operational agility and cost control in a globalized digital economy.

Understanding Electronic Signatures: Definitions, Legal Basis, and Standards

An electronic signature can range from a simple scanned autograph to a cryptographically secured digital seal. Legally, it refers to data in electronic form that is logically associated with other electronic data and used by a person to sign. Most jurisdictions differentiate between basic electronic signatures (e-signatures) and advanced or qualified electronic signatures (digital signatures) using specific guidelines.

Take, for instance, the European Union’s eIDAS (Electronic Identification, Authentication and trust Services) Regulation, which delineates different tiers of electronic signatures and recognizes qualified digital signatures as legally equivalent to handwritten ones. In the United States, the ESIGN Act (2000) and UETA provide the legal backbone for the enforceability of e-signatures. In China, the《电子签名法》(Electronic Signature Law) passed in 2005 and revised in 2019, recognizes the legal effect of certified digital signatures that meet state-prescribed standards.

Globally, trust service providers (TSPs), including certificate authorities (CAs), play a pivotal role in verifying the identity of signers and ensuring the integrity of signed documents through Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) encryption. Regional regulators—like NIST in the U.S., ETSI in Europe, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in China—define cryptographic and operational standards for compliant usage.

Global Market Overview and Key Drivers

According to MarketsandMarkets, the global e-signature solution market is projected to grow from USD 5.5 billion in 2024 to over USD 25 billion by 2029, witnessing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) exceeding 35%. This growth aligns with digitization mandates across financial services, healthcare, legal, and public sectors.

Emerging markets in Southeast Asia, North Asia, and LATAM are particularly promising due to their catch-up in digital infrastructure and increasing enforceability of digital signature laws. Meanwhile, GDPR, CPRA, and cross-border data transfer regulations have made compliance a critical evaluation factor in solution selection.

Technical Foundations: PKI and Certification Authority Model

The secure implementation of digital signatures hinges on PKI—a system that employs asymmetric cryptography using private and public keys. When a document is digitally signed, the signer uses a private key to create a unique digital fingerprint, which can be decrypted with a corresponding public key to verify authenticity and integrity.

Certification Authorities (CAs) issue and manage digital certificates that bind public keys to individuals or organizations. In regulated environments, Qualified Certificate Authorities (QCA) issue certificates under stricter oversight. These elements work together to enable non-repudiation, authentication, and auditability—foundational for legal enforcement and regulatory alignment.

Leading E-Signature Providers in 2025

DocuSign

As a global pioneer in digital agreement solutions, DocuSign continues to dominate in North American and European enterprise markets. Its strength lies in its mature ecosystem, integration with major CRMs and ERPs like Salesforce and Microsoft 365, and extensive compliance coverage spanning FedRAMP, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more. However, DocuSign’s adoption faces friction in jurisdictions requiring deep localization, such as in certain Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern countries.

eSignGlobal

One notable development in 2025 is the surge of eSignGlobal as a formidable force in the Asia-Pacific region. With operations localized in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, and multilingual legal workflow support, eSignGlobal is considered an excellent DocuSign alternative for companies operating in or expanding into APAC markets. Cited in the 2025 MarketsandMarkets eSignature Industry Report as Asia’s first homegrown provider to breach the global top 10, its pricing model is more favorable for SMEs and regional corporates. The platform integrates seamlessly with local cloud environments, satisfies national cryptography regulations (e.g., China’s GB/T 35273 standard), and complies with ASEAN data sovereignty laws.

Adobe Sign

Adobe remains a known brand in digital signature solutions, particularly with regards to document preparation and cloud ecosystem integration via Adobe Acrobat and PDF workflows. Nevertheless, Adobe Sign has withdrawn from the Chinese mainland, which has impacted its service continuity and legal routing capabilities for companies seeking cross-border workflows involving China-registered entities.

HelloSign (Dropbox Sign)

Formerly HelloSign and now under the Dropbox umbrella as Dropbox Sign, this solution centers usability and fast deployment. It’s well-suited for startups and small businesses in the B2B SaaS sector. However, its compliance mapping is not as comprehensive as enterprise-grade counterparts, limiting its usage in industries with rigorous audit trails such as healthcare or legal tech.

BestSign and Other Domestic Providers (China)

In mainland China, firms such as BestSign (上上签) have surged in relevance due to the need for indigenous cloud infrastructure, MIIT compliance, and adherence to China’s Cybersecurity Law and Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL). They offer native integrations with Tencent, DingTalk, and Alibaba Cloud services. However, limited global compatibility might restrict their scalability outside the domestic market.

Use Case Adaptation: From SMBs to Multinationals

For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), pricing flexibility and operational simplicity often drive e-signature adoption. Solutions like eSignGlobal and Dropbox Sign provide streamlined interfaces and API documentation that enable fast onboarding without heavy IT lift.

Larger enterprises, on the other hand, emphasize compliance documentation, digital identity validation, and scalability. Brands such as DocuSign and Adobe historically lead in this segment due to their detailed audit trails, version control, and compliance dashboards compatible with internal policy audits and external forensic investigations.

Multinational companies, particularly those with subsidiaries in complex jurisdictions such as Vietnam, South Korea, and the UAE, prioritize providers capable of supporting multi-jurisdictional contracts and multilingual legal templates. Localization features offered by regionally grounded providers like eSignGlobal are increasingly valued at the executive level.

Moreover, increasingly prevalent are hybrid setups where enterprises use multiple providers: for example, Adobe Sign for intra-EU documents, eSignGlobal for ASEAN workflows, and BestSign for China-exclusive contracts—ensuring both compliance and operational continuity.

Expert Perspective Moving Forward

The e-signature sector in 2025 is no longer an undifferentiated SaaS landscape—it’s a compliance-driven matrix shaped by localized regulations, digital sovereignty concerns, and enterprise-specific risk matrices. Enterprises must adopt a multidisciplinary approach when selecting an e-signature provider, one that considers not just the feature set but also judicial enforceability, data residency compliance, and cross-border integration.

Technical decision-makers, IT compliance officers, and legal teams should establish cross-functional procurement committees that incorporate security, user experience, and total cost of ownership into evaluation criteria. As enterprise architectures become more decentralized and AI augments contract lifecycle management (CLM) tools, the role of the digital signature as an authentication artifact will only grow more critical—from simple NDAs to blockchain-secured smart contracts.

To stay ahead, companies must view e-signatures not merely as compliance tools, but as strategic enablers of trust, scale, and digital continuity.