head to head · open source
pdfcpu vs docspell
pdfcpu has 8,895 GitHub stars, 644 forks, 121 open issues and last shipped yesterday. docspell has 2,343 stars, 186 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. pdfcpu leads on adoption by 280% (8,895 vs 2,343 stars). pdfcpu is written in Go under Apache-2.0; docspell is written in Elm under AGPL-3.0. pdfcpu has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, docspell 8%. pdfcpu 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
| pdfcpu | docspell | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Elm |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 644 | ⑂ 186 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pdfcpu if
- You weight community size — 8.9K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick docspell if
- You want the docspell feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Elm
- You evaluated both and docspell fits your workflow better
About pdfcpu
pdfcpu: PDF tooling for Go and the command line pdfcpu is a PDF processing library and command line tool written in Go. It supports validation, optimization, encryption, signing, document assembly, content extraction, and other common PDF operations. pdfcpu supports PDF versions through PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000 2). PDF 2.0 validation support is basic and continuously improving. Horst Rutter, the maintainer of pdfcpu, is a member of the PDF Association. Installation Usage CLI Validate a PDF: Merge two PDFs: Go API See API documentation for usage examples. Features Validate, optimize, split, trim, and merge PDFs Extract…
read the full pdfcpu overview →
About docspell
Docspell Document Management System (DMS) Docspell is a personal document organizer. Or sometimes called a "Document Management System" (DMS). You'll need a scanner to convert your papers into files. Docspell can then assist in organizing the resulting mess :wink:. It can unify your files from scanners, emails and other sources. It is targeted for home use, i.e. families, households and also for smaller groups/companies. You can associate tags, set correspondends and lots of other predefined and custom metadata. If your documents are associated with such meta data, you can quickly find them later using the…
read the full docspell overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pdfcpu or docspell more popular?
pdfcpu has 8,895 GitHub stars and docspell has 2,343. pdfcpu has the larger community by that measure.
Are pdfcpu and docspell free?
Both are open source. pdfcpu is licensed under Apache-2.0 and docspell under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pdfcpu and docspell?
pdfcpu is written in Go and docspell in Elm. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, pdfcpu or docspell?
Choose pdfcpu if you want the larger community (8,895 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose docspell if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.