Paperless-ngx vs Syncthing

Comparing two open source alternatives to Google Drive and Dropbox . Use the comparison below to decide which one fits your needs.

Paperless-ngx

GPL-3.0

Self-hosted document management system with OCR, full-text search, and automatic tagging for your paper documents.

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Syncthing

MPL-2.0

Continuous file synchronization program that syncs files directly between your devices — no cloud required.

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Side-by-side comparison

	Paperless-ngx	Syncthing
License	GPL-3.0	MPL-2.0
Self-hostable	Yes	Yes
GitHub Stars	44,372	87,751
Forks	3,038	5,416
Open Issues	13	376
Last Commit	Aug 18, 2026	Aug 18, 2026
First Released	Feb 12, 2022	Nov 26, 2013
Categories	Productivity & Utilities	Cloud Storage
Tags	#pdf #file storage #archive	#cloud storage #file storage #privacy

GitHub stars over time

Paperless-ngx

Syncthing87,751

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