Paperless-ngx
Document ManagementA document management system that turns scanned paper documents into a searchable online archive.
Open-source alternative to:
What the free edition leaves out
Scroll sideways to view all columns →The official pages do not say enough about the free edition to give a verdict. “Not confirmed” means the official pages we read did not say, so we do not guess.
| Feature | Free edition | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSO / SAML | Free | The configuration docs have an Authentication and SSO section covering social login providers through django-allauth and HTTP remote user. SAML is not mentioned. | Source ↗ |
| Role-based access control | Free | The usage docs describe global permissions plus object-level view and edit permissions for users and groups. | Source ↗ |
| Audit logs | Free | The usage docs say changes to documents are recorded in an audit log, enabled by default since version 2.7. | Source ↗ |
| Multi-user / teams | Free | The usage docs describe sharing documents with other users by assigning permissions. | Source ↗ |
| Backups and restore | Free | The administration docs describe a document exporter for backups and a matching importer for restoring. | Source ↗ |
| API access | Free | The API docs say Paperless-ngx ships with a fully documented REST API and a browsable interface. | Source ↗ |
| Support SLA | Not confirmed | The README points to GitHub and a Matrix room for community support; no paid support is described. | Source ↗ |
Best for
Households and small offices that want to scan paper into a searchable, self-hosted archive.
Why choose it over DocuWare
The code is GPL-3.0 licensed and the docs describe roles and object permissions, an audit log, an exporter for backups and a REST API as part of the software. It runs from a Docker Compose setup with PostgreSQL.
Where it falls short
It is self-hosted only, with community support through GitHub and Matrix. You run PostgreSQL, a Redis-compatible broker, upgrades and backups yourself. The exporter does not include API tokens, so they must be regenerated after an import.
Open-source alternative to
- DocuWare — Paperless-ngx scans, stores and searches documents, which overlaps with DocuWare.
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