head to head · open source
community vs docspell
community has 2,423 GitHub stars, 238 forks, 46 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. docspell has 2,351 stars, 186 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. community leads on adoption by 3% (2,423 vs 2,351 stars). community is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; docspell is written in Elm under AGPL-3.0. community has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, docspell 8%. docspell was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (document-management), 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
| community | docspell | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 2.4K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Elm |
| Last push | 2026-05-18 | 2026-11-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 238 | ⑂ 186 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick community if
- You weight community size — 2.4K 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 docspell if
- You want the docspell feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Elm
- You evaluated both and docspell fits your workflow better
About community
Documize Community is an open source, modern, self hosted, enterprise grade knowledge management solution. Built for technical and non technical users Designed to unify both customer facing and internal documentation Organization through labels, spaces and categories It's built with Golang + EmberJS and compiled down to a single executable binary that is available for Linux, Windows and Mac. All you need to provide is your database PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server or any MySQL variant. Latest Release Community edition: v5.14.0 Community+ edition: v5.14.0 The Community+ edition is the "enterprise" offering with…
read the full community overview →
About docspell
Docspell Document Management System (DMS) Docspell is a personal document organizer. Or sometimes called a "Document Management System" (DMS). You'll need a scanner to convert your papers into files. Docspell can then assist in organizing the resulting mess :wink:. It can unify your files from scanners, emails and other sources. It is targeted for home use, i.e. families, households and also for smaller groups/companies. You can associate tags, set correspondends and lots of other predefined and custom metadata. If your documents are associated with such meta data, you can quickly find them later using the…
read the full docspell overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is community or docspell more popular?
community has 2,423 GitHub stars and docspell has 2,351. community has the larger community by that measure.
Are community and docspell free?
Both are open source. community is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and docspell under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between community and docspell?
community is written in JavaScript and docspell in Elm. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, community or docspell?
Choose community if you want the larger community (2,423 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose docspell if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.