head to head · open source
Documenso vs pdfx
Documenso has 15,062 GitHub stars, 3,225 forks, 238 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pdfx has 1,063 stars, 122 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Documenso leads on adoption by 1,317% (15,062 vs 1,063 stars). Documenso is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; pdfx is written in TypeScript under MIT. Documenso has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, pdfx 11%. 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.
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Side by side
| Documenso | pdfx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 122 |
| 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 pdfx if
- You want the pdfx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and pdfx 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 pdfx
PDFx is a free, MIT licensed, open source desktop application and file format that bundles many PDF documents into a single valid PDF, aimed at people who need to organise, view, reorder and export large collections of documents on macOS, Windows or Linux.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Documenso or pdfx more popular?
Documenso has 15,062 GitHub stars and pdfx has 1,063. Documenso has the larger community by that measure.
Are Documenso and pdfx free?
Both are open source. Documenso is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and pdfx under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Documenso and pdfx?
Documenso is written in TypeScript and pdfx 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 pdfx?
Choose Documenso if you want the larger community (15,062 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pdfx if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.