head to head · open source
ONLYOFFICE Docs vs PDF4QT
ONLYOFFICE Docs has 6,910 GitHub stars, 1,308 forks, 1,135 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. PDF4QT has 1,477 stars, 145 forks, 32 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ONLYOFFICE Docs leads on adoption by 368% (6,910 vs 1,477 stars). ONLYOFFICE Docs is written in Shell under AGPL-3.0; PDF4QT is written in C++ under MIT. ONLYOFFICE Docs has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, PDF4QT 10%. PDF4QT was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| ONLYOFFICE Docs | PDF4QT | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.9K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-07-22 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 145 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ONLYOFFICE Docs if
- You weight community size — 6.9K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick PDF4QT if
- You want the PDF4QT feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and PDF4QT fits your workflow better
About ONLYOFFICE Docs
ONLYOFFICE Docs is a free collaborative online office suite of viewers and editors for text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, PDFs and diagrams, intended for teams and organisations that need real time document collaboration either inside their own infrastructure or embedded in a third party file sharing platform.
read the full ONLYOFFICE Docs overview →
About PDF4QT
PDF4QT is an MIT licensed, cross platform PDF toolkit for Windows and Linux that combines dedicated desktop applications — a viewer, editor, page manipulator, document diff tool and command line utility — with a C++/Qt PDF rendering engine built against the PDF Reference 2.0, and it is aimed at end users, developers and integrators who need PDF handling they can inspect, modify and redistribute without licence friction.
read the full PDF4QT overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ONLYOFFICE Docs or PDF4QT more popular?
ONLYOFFICE Docs has 6,910 GitHub stars and PDF4QT has 1,477. ONLYOFFICE Docs has the larger community by that measure.
Are ONLYOFFICE Docs and PDF4QT free?
Both are open source. ONLYOFFICE Docs is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and PDF4QT under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ONLYOFFICE Docs and PDF4QT?
ONLYOFFICE Docs is written in Shell and PDF4QT in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ONLYOFFICE Docs or PDF4QT?
Choose ONLYOFFICE Docs if you want the larger community (6,910 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose PDF4QT if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.