head to head · open source
bentopdf vs papermerge-core
bentopdf has 16,233 GitHub stars, 1,450 forks, 156 open issues and last shipped yesterday. papermerge-core has 551 stars, 115 forks, 36 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. bentopdf leads on adoption by 2,846% (16,233 vs 551 stars). bentopdf is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; papermerge-core is written in Python under Apache-2.0. bentopdf has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, papermerge-core 21%. bentopdf was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (pdf), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| bentopdf | papermerge-core | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 551 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 115 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick bentopdf if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick papermerge-core if
- You want the papermerge-core feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and papermerge-core fits your workflow better
About bentopdf
BentoPDF BentoPDF is a powerful, privacy first, client side PDF toolkit that is self hostable and allows you to manipulate, edit, merge, and process PDF files directly in your browser. No server side processing is required, ensuring your files remain secure and private. Table of Contents Join Us on Discord Documentation Licensing Stargazers over time Thank You to Our Sponsors Why BentoPDF? Features / Tools Supported Organize & Manage PDFs Edit & Modify PDFs Convert to PDF Convert from PDF Secure & Optimize PDFs Other Products Translations Getting Started Prerequisites Quick Start Static Hosting Self Hosting…
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About papermerge-core
⚠️ Important Notice Papermerge DMS Open Source Core SEEKING MAINTAINERS This is the open source version of Papermerge, after 9 years of development. I'm now focusing on Papermerge Cloud (managed, SaaS version). 🔗 Join as maintainer: 🔗 Try Papermerge Cloud: The code remains available for anyone who wants to self host or contribute. Papermerge DMS or simply Papermerge is a open source document management system designed to work with scanned documents (also called digital archives). It extracts text from your scans using OCR, indexes them, and prepares them for full text search. Papermerge provides the look and…
read the full papermerge-core overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is bentopdf or papermerge-core more popular?
bentopdf has 16,233 GitHub stars and papermerge-core has 551. bentopdf has the larger community by that measure.
Are bentopdf and papermerge-core free?
Both are open source. bentopdf is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and papermerge-core under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between bentopdf and papermerge-core?
bentopdf is written in JavaScript and papermerge-core in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, bentopdf or papermerge-core?
Choose bentopdf if you want the larger community (16,233 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose papermerge-core if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.