Updated August 2026
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    5.2k

    Papra: Maintenance, Licence and Alternatives

    Minimalist document storage, management and archiving platform designed to be simple to use and accessible to everyone.

    TL;DR • Papra • as of August 2026

    Papra is an open-source document management project, with 5.2k GitHub stars and a health score of 93/100. It committed 701 times in the last twelve months across 12 of those months, and its status is actively maintained. Licence: AGPL-3.0. It has real momentum, so treat it as a live competitor rather than a stale repository.

    5.2k
    GitHub stars
    93/100
    Health score
    701
    Commits (12 mo)
    12/12
    Active months

    Maintenance health

    Status Actively maintained — Committed within the last 45 days.
    Last commit 2026-08-07
    Days since last commit 10
    Commits, last 3 months 201
    Commits, last 12 months 701
    Months with activity 12 of 12
    Last release 2026-07-04
    Archived No
    Licence AGPL-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

    AGPL-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 Papra means for your idea

    Papra 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.

    Papra: common questions

    Is Papra still maintained in 2026?

    Actively maintained. Papra recorded 701 commits over the last twelve months, with activity in 12 of those months and 201 commits in the last quarter. Last commit: 2026-08-07. Last release: 2026-07-04. Committed within the last 45 days.

    Can I use Papra commercially?

    Papra is published under AGPL-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.

    Papra 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

    Paperless-ngx

    Document Management

    44k

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

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    GPL-3.0

    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

    Competing with free? Check the market first.

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