Self-hosted alternatives to Adobe Scan
Want paperless document scanning and archive without handing your data to Adobe Scan? These 17 open-source apps run on your own server. Cheapest estimated hosting starts at about $10/month.
| App | Health | Stars | License | Docker | RAM (est.) | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stirling-PDF | Actively maintained | 95.7k | Apache-2.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| Paperless-ngx | Actively maintained | 47.6k | GPL-3.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| Docuseal | Actively maintained | 19k | AGPL-3.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| BentoPDF | Actively maintained | 16.2k | AGPL-3.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| Documenso | Actively maintained | 15.6k | AGPL-3.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| Gotenberg | Actively maintained | 13.5k | MIT | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| OpenSign | Actively maintained | 7.2k | AGPL-3.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| Papra | Actively maintained | 5.7k | AGPL-3.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| SnapOtter | Actively maintained | 2.9k | AGPL-3.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| Docspell | Actively maintained | 2.3k | GPL-3.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| Mayan EDMS | Actively maintained | 682 | GPL-2.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| SimpleDMS | Actively maintained | 170 | AGPL-3.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| Papermerge | Maintained | 552 | Apache-2.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| EveryDocs | Maintained | 429 | GPL-3.0 | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| I, Librarian | Maintained | 356 | GPL-3.0 | – | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| Bottle Rocket | Actively maintained | 14 | MIT | ✓ | 2 GB | $10/mo |
| SeedDMS | Health unknown | – | GPL-2.0 | – | 2 GB | $10/mo |
The options in detail
1. Stirling-PDF
Local hosted web application that allows you to perform various operations on PDF files, such as merging, splitting, file conversions and OCR.
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-11-03. Latest release v3.2.2 (2026-10-24). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
2. Paperless-ngx
Scan, index, and archive all of your paper documents with an improved interface (fork of Paperless).
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-11-03. Latest release v3.4.1 (2026-10-31). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
3. Docuseal
Create, fill, and sign digital documents (alternative to DocuSign).
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-11-02. Latest release 3.3.5 (2026-11-02). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
4. BentoPDF
Powerful, privacy-first, client-side PDF toolkit that allows you to manipulate, edit, merge, and process PDF files directly in your browser.
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-11-02. Latest release v2.8.11 (2026-10-31). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
5. Documenso
Digital document signing platform (alternative to DocuSign).
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-11-03. Latest release v2.21.1 (2026-10-22). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
6. Gotenberg
Developer-friendly API to interact with powerful tools like Chromium and LibreOffice for converting numerous document formats (HTML, Markdown, Word, Excel, etc.) into PDF files, and more.
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-11-02. Latest release v8.39.0 (2026-10-27). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
7. OpenSign
Document signing software (alternative to DocuSign).
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-11-02. Latest release v3.1.0 (2026-10-30). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
8. Papra
Minimalist document storage, management and archiving platform designed to be simple to use and accessible to everyone.
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-10-30. Latest release @papra/cli@0.2.6 (2026-10-22). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
9. SnapOtter
Suite of 200+ web tools for converting and editing images, videos, audio and PDFs, including a layer-based image editor, OCR, transcription, background removal and batch processing pipelines (alternative to SmallPDF, iLovePDF, CloudConvert).
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-11-03. Latest release v2.2.0 (2026-07-29). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
10. Docspell
Auto-tagging document organizer and archive.
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-10-27. Latest release nightly (2026-10-27). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
11. Mayan EDMS
Electronic document management system for your documents with preview generation, OCR, and automatic categorization among other features.
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-09-21. Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
12. SimpleDMS
Easy-to-use, metadata-driven, document management system (DMS) for small businesses that sorts documents almost by itself.
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-10-30. Latest release v1.18.0 (2026-10-01). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
13. Papermerge
Document management system focused on scanned documents (electronic archives). Features file browsing in similar way to dropbox/google drive. OCR, full text search, text overlay/selection.
Maintained Last activity 2026-10-31. Latest release 3.5.3 (2025-08-18). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
14. EveryDocs
Simple Document Management System for private use with basic functionality to organize your documents digitally.
Maintained Last activity 2026-08-03. Latest release v1.0 (2019-10-16). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
15. I, Librarian
Organize PDF papers and office documents. It provides a lot of extra features for students and research groups both in industry and academia.
Maintained Last activity 2025-12-02. Latest release 5.11.3 (2025-12-02). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
16. Bottle Rocket
Document scanning and management application, compatible with Rocketbook and Scribzee formats.
Actively maintained Last activity 2026-11-02. Latest release v2.0.0.1 (2026-10-07). Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
17. SeedDMS
Document Management System with workflows, access rights, fulltext search, and more.
Health unknown Needs roughly 2 GB RAM. How to run it →
Why self-host instead of Adobe Scan?
- Own your data — it lives on a server you control, with backups you decide on.
- Predictable cost — a small VPS often replaces per-seat pricing for a whole team or family.
- No lock-in — open-source licenses let you keep running the software even if a vendor disappears.
The trade-off: you are responsible for updates, backups and security. Pick an app marked Actively maintained and with Docker support for the easiest ride.
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Adobe Scan is a trademark of its owner; this site is not affiliated with it. Listings come from the community-maintained awesome-selfhosted list.