head to head · open source
Documenso vs PaperKnife
Documenso has 15,062 GitHub stars, 3,225 forks, 238 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PaperKnife has 1,459 stars, 103 forks, 47 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Documenso leads on adoption by 932% (15,062 vs 1,459 stars). Documenso is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; PaperKnife is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Documenso has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, PaperKnife 7%. Documenso was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (open-source, 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Documenso | PaperKnife | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 103 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Documenso if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick PaperKnife if
- You want the PaperKnife feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and PaperKnife fits your workflow better
About Documenso
Documenso is open source document signing software. It lives in business software ecosystem, specifically document management and e signatures. Project calls itself open source DocuSign alternative. It provides digital signing for PDF documents. It is written in TypeScript. It is licensed under AGPL 3.0. Repository shows 15014 stars, 3207 forks, 238 open issues, last push 2026 09 14.
read the full Documenso overview →
About PaperKnife
PaperKnife is a privacy first PDF utility built with React and TypeScript and distributed as a web application and an Android application. It belongs to the open source document management and PDF tools ecosystem, and its stated architecture is zero server: documents are processed on the user's device instead of being uploaded to a remote service. Core processing uses pdf lib and pdfjs dist in a sandboxed WebAssembly environment, the Android version is powered by Capacitor, and the repository is licensed under AGPL 3.0.
read the full PaperKnife overview →
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More Document Management & E-Signatures projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Document Management & E-Signatures field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Documenso or PaperKnife more popular?
Documenso has 15,062 GitHub stars and PaperKnife has 1,459. Documenso has the larger community by that measure.
Are Documenso and PaperKnife free?
Both are open source. Documenso is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and PaperKnife under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Documenso and PaperKnife?
Documenso is written in TypeScript and PaperKnife in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Documenso or PaperKnife?
Choose Documenso if you want the larger community (15,062 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose PaperKnife if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.