head to head · open source
Documenso vs pdfcraft
Documenso has 15,356 GitHub stars, 3,320 forks, 238 open issues and last shipped today. pdfcraft has 2,684 stars, 903 forks, 68 open issues and last shipped today. Documenso leads on adoption by 472% (15,356 vs 2,684 stars). Documenso is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; pdfcraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Documenso has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, pdfcraft 34%. pdfcraft 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 | pdfcraft | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 903 |
| 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 pdfcraft if
- You want the pdfcraft feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and pdfcraft 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 pdfcraft
PdfCraft is an open source, clean room reimplementation of Adobe Acrobat built in pure Rust, aimed at anyone who wants a fast native tool to read, organize, secure and edit PDFs without an account or a cloud connection.
read the full pdfcraft overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Documenso or pdfcraft more popular?
Documenso has 15,356 GitHub stars and pdfcraft has 2,684. Documenso has the larger community by that measure.
Are Documenso and pdfcraft free?
Both are open source. Documenso is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and pdfcraft under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Documenso and pdfcraft?
Documenso is written in TypeScript and pdfcraft in Rust. 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 pdfcraft?
Choose Documenso if you want the larger community (15,356 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pdfcraft if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.