head to head · open source
Documenso vs pdfx
Documenso has 15,633 GitHub stars, 3,432 forks, 238 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pdfx has 1,088 stars, 126 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Documenso leads on adoption by 1,337% (15,633 vs 1,088 stars). Documenso is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; pdfx is written in TypeScript under MIT. Documenso has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, pdfx 12%. 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 | ★ 16K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 126 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Documenso if
- You weight community size — 16K 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
The Open Source DocuSign Alternative. Learn more » Discord · Website · Documentation · Issues · Upcoming Releases · Roadmap About Documenso Signing documents digitally should be fast and easy and should be the best practice for every document signed worldwide. This is technically quite easy today, but it also introduces a new party to every signature: The signing tool providers. While this is not a problem in itself, it should make us think about how we want these providers of trust to work. Documenso aims to be the world's most trusted document signing tool. This trust is built by empowering you to self host…
read the full Documenso overview →
About pdfx
PDFx One file. Many documents. Still a PDF. What it is PDFx is an open, backwards compatible extension of PDF that bundles many documents into a single file, plus a minimal desktop viewer for macOS, Windows, and Linux. The files produced are fully valid PDFs: open them anywhere and every page shows in sequence. Open them in PDFx and it splits back into the original documents. Plain single PDFs work as they are. Drag and drop .pdf files, images or folders anywhere in the window. Each document renders as a horizontal strip of pages, and documents stack vertically. Reorder or remove them, then Export PDF to save…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Documenso or pdfx more popular?
Documenso has 15,633 GitHub stars and pdfx has 1,088. 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 (15,633 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pdfx if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.