head to head · open source
pdfcpu vs paperless-mobile
pdfcpu has 8,907 GitHub stars, 650 forks, 121 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. paperless-mobile has 1,504 stars, 111 forks, 135 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. pdfcpu leads on adoption by 492% (8,907 vs 1,504 stars). pdfcpu is written in Go under Apache-2.0; paperless-mobile is written in Dart under GPL-3.0. pdfcpu has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, paperless-mobile 7%. paperless-mobile 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
| pdfcpu | paperless-mobile | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 650 | ⑂ 111 |
| 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 paperless-mobile if
- You want the paperless-mobile feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and paperless-mobile 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 paperless-mobile
[![Contributors][contributors shield]][contributors url] [![Forks][forks shield]][forks url] [![Stargazers][stars shield]][stars url] [![Issues][issues shield]][issues url] [![MIT License][license shield]][license url] Paperless Mobile An (almost) fully fledged mobile paperless client. Report Bug · Request Feature About The Project Paperless Mobile brings paperless ngx to your smartphone without any compromises. While you can use paperless ngx from a mobile browser, managing your documents this way is often a tedious and slow process. The app integrates a custom scanner, biometric authentication and many more…
read the full paperless-mobile overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pdfcpu or paperless-mobile more popular?
pdfcpu has 8,907 GitHub stars and paperless-mobile has 1,504. pdfcpu has the larger community by that measure.
Are pdfcpu and paperless-mobile free?
Both are open source. pdfcpu is licensed under Apache-2.0 and paperless-mobile under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pdfcpu and paperless-mobile?
pdfcpu is written in Go and paperless-mobile in Dart. 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 paperless-mobile?
Choose pdfcpu if you want the larger community (8,907 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose paperless-mobile if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.