head to head · open source
Documenso vs pdfcpu
Documenso has 15,062 GitHub stars, 3,225 forks, 238 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pdfcpu has 8,842 stars, 633 forks, 121 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Documenso leads on adoption by 70% (15,062 vs 8,842 stars). Documenso is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; pdfcpu is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Documenso has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, pdfcpu 7%. Documenso 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
| Documenso | pdfcpu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 8.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 633 |
| 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 pdfcpu if
- You want the pdfcpu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pdfcpu 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 pdfcpu
pdfcpu is a PDF processing library and command line tool written in Go. It lives in the Go and Golang ecosystem, is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, and is listed under Business Software in the Document Management and E Signatures category. The project has existed for nine years, carries 8,835 stars and 628 forks, and lists 121 open issues. Its maintainer, Horst Rutter, is a member of the PDF Association, and the project documentation lives at pdfcpu.io. The GitHub topics attached to the repository are cli, go, golang, golang library, pdf, pdf files, and pdf tools, which describes both halves of what the…
read the full pdfcpu overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Documenso or pdfcpu more popular?
Documenso has 15,062 GitHub stars and pdfcpu has 8,842. Documenso has the larger community by that measure.
Are Documenso and pdfcpu free?
Both are open source. Documenso is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and pdfcpu under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Documenso and pdfcpu?
Documenso is written in TypeScript and pdfcpu in Go. 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 pdfcpu?
Choose Documenso if you want the larger community (15,062 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pdfcpu if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.