The aim of this study was to investigate whether histogram analysis in diffusion-weighted (DW) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can help differentiate pancreatic adenocarcinomas from neuroendocrine tumors. Sixty-four patients with histologically confirmed 53 pancreatic adenocarcinomas or 19 neuroendocrine tumors underwent DW MRI. We evaluated the pixel distribution histogram parameters (mean, skewness, kurtosis, and entropy) of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values derived from b-values of 0 and 200 (ADC₂₀₀), 0 and 400 (ADC₄₀₀), or 0 and 800 (ADC₈₀₀) s/mm². Histogram parameters were compared between pancreatic adenocarcinomas and neuroendocrine tumors, and the diagnostic performance was evaluated by using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The mean ADC₂₀₀ and ADC₄₀₀ were significantly higher in neuroendocrine tumors than in pancreatic adenocarcinomas (P = 0.001 and P = 0.019, respectively). Pancreatic adenocarcinomas showed significantly higher skewness and kurtosis on ADC₄₀₀ (P = 0.007 and P = 0.001, respectively) and ADC₈₀₀ (P = 0.001 and P = 0.001, respectively). With all b-value combinations, the entropy of ADC values was significantly higher in pancreatic adenocarcinomas (P < 0.001 for ADC₂₀₀; P = 0.001 for ADC₄₀₀; P < 0.001 for ADC₈₀₀), and showed the highest area under the ROC curve for diagnosing adenocarcinomas (0.77 for ADC₂₀₀, 0.76 for ADC₄₀₀, and 0.78 for ADC₈₀₀). ADC histogram analysis of DW MRI can help differentiate pancreatic adenocarcinomas from neuroendocrine tumors.