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	44,139	87,516
Forks	3,009	5,401
Open Issues	11	377
Last Commit	Aug 10, 2026	Aug 10, 2026
First Released	Feb 12, 2022	Nov 26, 2013
Categories	Productivity & Utilities	Cloud Storage
Tags	#pdf #file storage #archive	#cloud storage #file storage #privacy

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