Updated August 2026
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    44k

    Paperless-ngx: Maintenance, Licence and Alternatives

    Scan, index, and archive all of your paper documents with an improved interface (fork of Paperless).

    TL;DR • Paperless-ngx • as of August 2026

    Paperless-ngx is an open-source document management project, with 44k GitHub stars and a health score of 100/100. It committed 1429 times in the last twelve months across 12 of those months, and its status is actively maintained. Licence: GPL-3.0. It has real momentum, so treat it as a live competitor rather than a stale repository.

    44k
    GitHub stars
    100/100
    Health score
    1429
    Commits (12 mo)
    12/12
    Active months

    Maintenance health

    Status Actively maintained — Committed within the last 45 days.
    Last commit 2026-08-15
    Days since last commit 2
    Commits, last 3 months 363
    Commits, last 12 months 1429
    Months with activity 12 of 12
    Last release 2026-08-01
    Archived No
    Licence GPL-3.0
    Category Document Management

    Health score combines commit recency, twelve-month commit volume, months with activity, release recency and archive state. Metadata refreshed August 2026.

    What the licence lets you do

    GPL-3.0

    Copyleft (GPL, AGPL, MPL): derivative work must stay open. AGPL also covers software offered over a network, which blocks most closed SaaS wrappers.

    This matters most when you plan to sell a hosted version. A permissive licence means anyone — including a competitor with more capital — can do the same, so your defensibility has to come from distribution, support or data, not from the code.

    What Paperless-ngx means for your idea

    Paperless-ngx is shipping code consistently, so a buyer comparing your product will find a maintained free option. Price and position against the total cost of self-hosting it, not against the paid incumbent's list price.

    Assume every prospect can find a free version in five minutes. Your wedge has to be something open source structurally cannot deliver: compliance, support SLAs, managed hosting at scale, or a workflow the maintainers refuse to build.

    Paperless-ngx: common questions

    Is Paperless-ngx still maintained in 2026?

    Actively maintained. Paperless-ngx recorded 1429 commits over the last twelve months, with activity in 12 of those months and 363 commits in the last quarter. Last commit: 2026-08-15. Last release: 2026-08-01. Committed within the last 45 days.

    Can I use Paperless-ngx commercially?

    Paperless-ngx is published under GPL-3.0. Copyleft (GPL, AGPL, MPL): derivative work must stay open. AGPL also covers software offered over a network, which blocks most closed SaaS wrappers.

    How crowded is the Document Management category?

    41 open-source implementations, 22 of them actively maintained, led by Stirling-PDF at 90k stars. Saturation score 72/100 — Crowded. Free, maintained alternatives already dominate this category.

    Paperless-ngx alternatives in Document Management

    Stirling-PDF

    Document Management

    90k

    Local hosted web application that allows you to perform various operations on PDF files, such as merging, splitting, file conversions and OCR.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    Apache-2.0

    Calibre

    Document Management

    26k

    E-book library manager that can view, convert, and catalog e-books in most of the major e-book formats and provides a built-in Web server for remote clients.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    GPL-3.0

    BentoPDF

    Document Management

    15k

    Powerful, privacy-first, client-side PDF toolkit that allows you to manipulate, edit, merge, and process PDF files directly in your browser.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    Documenso

    Alternative to DocuSign, Document signing

    14k

    Digital document signing platform (alternative to DocuSign).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    Competing with free? Check the market first.

    IdeaProof scores your idea against live competitors, market size and 1,000+ documented startup failures in about two minutes.