OpenDocMan vs Paperless-AI
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted document management options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | OpenDocMan | Paperless-AI |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 77 · Good | 84 · Excellent |
| Category | Document Management | Document Management |
| License | GPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | PHP | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, docker, source | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 283 | ★ 5,952 |
| First released | 2004 | 2024 |
| Replaces | DocuWare, M-Files | DocuWare |
What are OpenDocMan and Paperless-AI?
OpenDocMan
OpenDocMan is an open-source, web-based document management system written in PHP. It features fine-grained access control, automated check-in and check-out, and file metadata management.
- Fine-grained file access control
- Check-in and check-out
- File metadata and categories
- LDAP support
Paperless-AI
Paperless-AI is a companion service for Paperless-ngx that uses large language models to automatically analyze, tag, and categorize scanned documents. It connects to a Paperless-ngx instance and enriches documents with AI-generated metadata.
- AI-powered tagging
- Automatic categorization
- Paperless-ngx integration
- Document chat
OpenDocMan vs Paperless-AI: key differences
OpenDocMan is written in PHP, while Paperless-AI is built with JavaScript. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for OpenDocMan versus MIT for Paperless-AI. OpenDocMan is the more established project (first released 2004), while Paperless-AI arrived in 2024. Paperless-AI has the considerably larger community, at 5,952 GitHub stars versus 283.
Why pick each one
Choose OpenDocMan if…
- Runs on a standard LAMP stack
- Simple to deploy
Watch out for
- Dated interface
- Limited modern features
Choose Paperless-AI if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 6k GitHub stars
- Written in JavaScript
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenDocMan or Paperless-AI better?
Neither is universally better. Paperless-AI has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are OpenDocMan and Paperless-AI free and open-source?
Yes. OpenDocMan is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Paperless-AI under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run OpenDocMan and Paperless-AI with Docker?
OpenDocMan: yes. Paperless-AI: yes.