Docspell, Papermerge, and Teedy are all free, open-source, self-hosted document organizers aimed at individuals and small teams rather than large enterprises.…
Best for: Privacy-conscious individuals and families who want machine-learning-assisted tagging and a shared 'collectives' model for household documents
freemium · From Free (self-hosted); cloud plans from about EUR 19/user/month
Best for: Users wanting the lightest-weight self-hosted document management system, with an optional hosted cloud alternative
At a Glance
Docspell
Papermerge
Teedy
Primary category
Documents & E-signature
Documents & E-signature
Documents & E-signature
Rating
Not documented
Not documented
Not documented
Pricing model
Free / Open Source
Open Source
freemium
Starting price
Free
Free
Free (self-hosted); cloud plans from about EUR 19/user/month
Free plan
Yes
Yes
Yes
Free trial
Not documented
Not documented
Not documented
Platforms
Android
Not documented
Android
Team collaboration
Not documented
Not documented
Not documented
AI features
Not documented
Not documented
Not documented
Public API
Yes
Yes
Yes
Standout Differences
Papermerge is API-first with granular sharing
Papermerge exposes an OpenAPI-compliant REST API and is built around multi-user permissions with group ownership and sharing, making it well suited to teams that want to build custom integrations on top of a self-hosted archive.
Papermerge
Docspell learns your filing habits
Docspell uses OCR plus natural language processing to suggest correspondents, tags, and dates, improving over time, and organizes documents around shared 'collectives' for households or small groups.
Docspell
Teedy runs almost anywhere
Teedy has been reported to scale to roughly one million documents and can run on hardware from a Raspberry Pi to Kubernetes, with an optional hosted cloud version at teedy.io.
Teedy
All three are free with no feature paywalls
Docspell, Papermerge, and Teedy each provide their full self-hosted feature set for free, without a commercial tier gating core functionality.
Docspell, Papermerge, Teedy
All three are smaller, community-driven projects
None of the three has the scale of the much larger Paperless-ngx community; each is maintained by a small team or individual, which can mean slower feature velocity but also less commercial pressure toward paid tiers.
Docspell, Papermerge, Teedy
Feature-by-Feature
Core Document Management
Feature
Docspell
Papermerge
Teedy
Free, open-source, self-hosted
Available
Available
Available
OCR text extraction
Available
Available
Available
Full-text search
Available
Available
Available
REST API
Available
Available
Available
Organization and Access Control
Feature
Docspell
Papermerge
Teedy
Machine-learning-assisted auto-tagging
Available
Not documented
Not documented
Granular multi-user permissions
Limited
Available
Available
Native mobile app
Available
Not documented
Available
Deployment
Feature
Docspell
Papermerge
Teedy
Optional managed/hosted cloud version
Not documented
Not documented
Available
Pricing Compared
Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.
Docspell
Open Source (Self-Hosted) — Free n/a
Papermerge
Self-Hosted (Open Source) — Free N/A - self-hosted, no subscription
Teedy Cloud — From about EUR 19/user/month monthly
Pros & Cons
Docspell
Pros
Completely free and open source under the AGPLv3 license with no feature limits or paywalls
Machine-learning-assisted tagging and metadata extraction reduce manual filing effort over time
Multi-user 'collective' model is well suited to families or small groups sharing one document pool
Full REST API, Android app, and CLI make it easy to automate and integrate into existing self-hosted setups
Cons
Requires self-hosting expertise; there is no official managed cloud version from the project
Smaller community and ecosystem than the more widely adopted Paperless-ngx
OCR and NLP-based suggestions require correction and training over time to reach high accuracy
No corporate support contract or SLA is available since it is a volunteer-maintained project
Papermerge
Pros
Free and open source under the permissive Apache-2.0 license
API-first design makes it easy to automate and integrate
Multi-user permissions and sharing suited to small teams, not just individuals
Self-hosted, giving full control over data and privacy
Modern tech stack with a Python backend, TypeScript frontend and PostgreSQL database
Cons
Much smaller community and slower feature velocity than Paperless-ngx
Requires self-hosting expertise, including Docker and server maintenance
Less mature auto-tagging and machine-learning features than some competitors
Documentation and third-party tutorials are sparser than more popular alternatives
No official commercial support or SLA
Teedy
Pros
Free and open source under GPL with no feature limitations on the self-hosted version
Includes enterprise-style features like OCR and encryption typically found only in paid document management systems
Lightweight enough to run on modest hardware such as a Raspberry Pi, while also scaling to Kubernetes
Docker-first deployment makes self-hosting straightforward
Optional hosted cloud version available for teams that do not want to manage infrastructure
Cons
Self-hosting requires basic server administration skills to deploy, secure, and maintain
Smaller ecosystem and community compared to larger commercial document management platforms
Default embedded H2 database is best suited for smaller deployments; PostgreSQL is recommended for scale
Mobile experience is limited to an Android client, with no native iOS app confirmed
Cloud version pricing and feature parity with self-hosted may vary and require checking current plans
Use Cases
Choose Docspell: Privacy-conscious individuals and families who want machine-learning-assisted tagging and a shared 'collectives' model for household documents
Choose Papermerge: Developers and small teams who want an API-first document management system with granular multi-user permissions and sharing
Choose Teedy: Users wanting the lightest-weight self-hosted document management system, with an optional hosted cloud alternative
Docspell
Household Paperwork Organization — Families digitize receipts, invoices, contracts, and tax documents into a shared, searchable archive that every household member can access under their own account.
Privacy-Focused Personal Archiving — Privacy-conscious individuals scan and organize personal documents without uploading sensitive files to a third-party SaaS service.
Small Team Document Sharing — Small companies or groups use a shared collective to manage business documents such as invoices and contracts across a small team.
Papermerge
API-driven document workflows — Build custom document automation on top of Papermerge's REST API.
Permissioned team document sharing — Give a small team shared, permissioned access to a self-hosted document archive.
Personal scanned document archive — Digitize and organize personal paper records into a searchable system.
Teedy
Small business document archiving — Small teams self-host Teedy to digitize, OCR, and organize business documents like invoices and contracts.
Personal document management — Individuals self-host Teedy on a home server or Raspberry Pi to organize personal records with search and encryption.
Team knowledge and file repository — Teams use Teedy's permissions, tagging, and workflow features to manage shared documents and approvals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Docspell, Papermerge, and Teedy really free to use?
Yes. Docspell (AGPLv3), Papermerge (Apache 2.0), and Teedy's self-hosted edition (GPL) are all fully open source with no feature paywalls; the only real cost is the infrastructure you run them on.
Which tool has the best multi-user permission model?
Papermerge, which is built around multi-user permissions with group ownership and sharing and an API-first design, compared to Docspell's simpler shared 'collectives' model and Teedy's user and group-based access control.
Which is easiest to run on minimal hardware?
Teedy, which has been reported to run on hardware ranging from a Raspberry Pi to Kubernetes clusters and can operate with an embedded H2 database for smaller deployments.
Do any of these offer a managed cloud option?
Teedy is the only one with an official hosted cloud version, teedy.io, priced from about EUR 19 per user per month. Docspell and Papermerge do not document an official managed cloud offering.
How do these compare to Paperless-ngx?
Both Docspell and Papermerge position themselves relative to Paperless-ngx, a larger and more widely adopted open-source document organizer; Papermerge in particular notes it has roughly 500 GitHub stars versus Paperless-ngx's more than 40,000, reflecting a much smaller community for all three tools compared here.
Which has the strongest automatic tagging or metadata extraction?
Docspell, which combines OCR with natural language processing to suggest correspondents, tags, and dates, and improves its suggestions as users confirm or correct them over time.