All three are open-source, self-hostable document organizers rather than SaaS-only products, but they diverge on maturity and extras. Docspell leans hardest…
Best for: Privacy-conscious households or small groups who want ML-assisted auto-tagging and a shared 'collective' document pool, and are comfortable running it with no official managed cloud option.
Open Source · From Free (self-hosted); Cloud plans from $7.50/month billed annually
Best for: Self-hosters who want the lightest, quickest Docker deployment plus an optional low-cost, GDPR-compliant EU cloud fallback for less technical users.
freemium · From Free (self-hosted); cloud plans from about EUR 19/user/month
Best for: Organizations that specifically need built-in AES-256 document encryption or a system proven at larger document volumes, with an official hosted cloud alternative at teedy.io.
At a Glance
Docspell
Papra
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 (self-hosted); Cloud plans from $7.50/month billed annually
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
Web
Android
Team collaboration
Not documented
Not documented
Not documented
AI features
Not documented
Not documented
Not documented
Public API
Yes
Yes
Yes
Standout Differences
Docspell pairs OCR with machine-learning tag suggestions
Docspell applies Stanford CoreNLP-based NLP on top of Tesseract OCR to suggest correspondents, tags, and dates, learning from user corrections over time, which the other two do not document to the same depth.
Docspell
Papra is the newest and lightest to self-host
Started in 2025, Papra ships as a Docker image under 200MB and offers automatic tagging rules, email ingestion, and an API/SDK/webhook layer, plus an optional EU-hosted cloud plan starting around $7.50/month billed annually.
Papra
Teedy is the only one with built-in document encryption
Teedy encrypts stored documents with 256-bit AES and has been reported to scale to roughly one million documents in production, differentiating it on both security and proven scale.
Teedy
Only Papra and Teedy offer an official managed cloud
Docspell has no official hosted version from its maintainer, while Papra and Teedy both sell optional managed cloud plans for users who do not want to self-host.
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
Papra
Pros
Free and fully open source (AGPL-3.0) with no vendor lock-in
Lightweight self-hosting footprint compared to heavier enterprise DMS platforms
Automatic tagging and email ingestion reduce manual filing work
Transparent, low-cost managed cloud option for non-technical users
Actively developed with a public roadmap and responsive open-source community
Cons
Young project (started 2025) so its feature set and integrations are less mature than established DMS platforms
Self-hosting requires basic Docker and server administration skills
No dedicated native mobile app is documented at this time
Smaller ecosystem of third-party integrations than SaaS incumbents like Evernote
Enterprise-grade compliance certifications (such as SOC 2 or HIPAA) are not publicly documented
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 households or small groups who want ML-assisted auto-tagging and a shared 'collective' document pool, and are comfortable running it with no official managed cloud option.
Choose Papra: Self-hosters who want the lightest, quickest Docker deployment plus an optional low-cost, GDPR-compliant EU cloud fallback for less technical users.
Choose Teedy: Organizations that specifically need built-in AES-256 document encryption or a system proven at larger document volumes, with an official hosted cloud alternative at teedy.io.
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.
Papra
Personal document archiving — Individuals scan and store receipts, contracts, IDs and other personal paperwork in one searchable place.
Small business and freelancer paperwork — Freelancers and small businesses organize invoices, contracts and receipts without a full enterprise DMS.
Self-hosted homelab document hub — Technical users run Papra alongside other self-hosted services on a home server or NAS.
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
Which of these three offers an official managed cloud hosting option?
Papra and Teedy both sell an official managed cloud version (Papra's cloud is EU-hosted from about $7.50/month billed annually, Teedy Cloud starts around EUR 19 per user per month). Docspell has no official managed cloud, only community third-party hosting options.
Does any of these tools encrypt documents by default?
Teedy is the only one of the three with documented built-in encryption, using 256-bit AES on stored documents. Docspell and Papra do not document built-in document encryption.
Which tool is best for a family or small group sharing one document pool?
Docspell's 'collectives' model is purpose-built for this, letting multiple users share a document pool while keeping individual accounts. Papra's organizations and Teedy's group permissions cover similar ground but with a less household-specific framing.
Can any of these automatically capture documents forwarded by email?
Docspell and Papra both support email-based ingestion, importing documents forwarded to a dedicated address. This is not documented as a feature for Teedy.
Are any of these backed by venture capital?
No. Docspell is a volunteer-maintained open-source project with no company behind it, Papra is bootstrapped and explicitly built without venture funding, and Teedy is developed by Sismics, a small independent software company.
Which is the newest and most actively evolving of the three?
Papra, which started as a side project in January 2025, is the newest. Its feature set and integrations are correspondingly less mature than Docspell's or Teedy's longer-running codebases.