Running a company involves dealing with tons of documentation. It is imperative that these documents are properly organized and easy to access when needed. Thanks to technology, many processes may be automated or in the cloud.

Today there are different open source document management solutions to help you organize, track, and access your documents for better workflow solutions.

The Top 6 Open Source Document Management Solutions

Once again, it was time to do some research. So we looked into the different companies that offer open source DMS for our needs. Here is a good overview of the top six. Hopefully, this review may find you one that can help with your individual or company's workflow.

Papermerge

Whether you work at a large brick-and-mortar company, or need help organizing your home office, Papermerge is a well-organized solution to your paperwork dilemma. This company's concept originally was conceived in 2017 when a tool was needed to organize scanned documents.

By 2019, the company had developed enough capacity to begin experimenting with extracting information from and finding previously scanned PDF files. As the company continued to organically grow, it became open-sourced in January 2020. With more than 14,000 downloads from Docker hub to date, the company continues to acquire more fans.

Features

Multi user capabilities and permissions
Task automation
Supports most scanner's output formats
Easily scans long receipts
Reorder Pages within a document
Can import email attachments
Reorder pages with any document

Pricing

Luckily, Papermerge gives tentative customers a chance to try their services out for free for up to 21 days. The free plan allows one user to organize up to 400 documents. Once your free trial runs out, you can now choose between the Personal or the Business plan.

The Personal plan costs 19 Euros per month and allows up to 2500 documents to be managed by one user. This appears to be a good option for freelancers and people who want to organize a home office. A small or medium-sized business can pay 49 euros a month to manage up to 20,000 documents from up to 10 users. This plan also comes with user management and assigned role capabilities.

Both personal and business plans are billed monthly. Papermerge allows customers to host this open source management on their own server. The company supplies Pro support plans for self-hosting for an annual subscription of 799 euros.

Tons of documents and receipts can easily stack up and create an eye sore on your desk. If you are a freelancer working from home or have a small team, you may consider PDF organization from Papermerge. Utilize their free 21-day trial to try the service out and see if it's right for you.

Teedy

Teedy is an open-source document management solution for a variety of client types. Individuals or large companies can use their services and special features to easily manage and store documents. Employees can upload all their expense reports or individuals can back up important emails with ease.

Due to advanced workflow capabilities, Teedy can help manage the excessive documentation that is characteristic of professions such as education, Healthcare, nonprofits, distribution and more. This tool comes with a ton of special features which we will cover in the next section.

Features

Clear user interface
Easy and automatic import options
Create an app based on the API
Full-text search engine
Compatible with several document types, such as DOCX, PDF, TXT and more
User and group permissions
Make comments on documents
Track document modifications
Share documents with non-Teedy account holders
Encryption for security
Use metadata to classify and categorize documents

Pricing

Teedy lets users try the service out on a 30-day free trial which comes with no obligation. Your 30-day free trial comes with all regular features but you are limited to using up to 1000 documents. Just use your email to sign up. Any documents that you upload and customize during the free trial will be transferred over to your paid account.

The Starter program is useful for individuals and small startups at a cost of 19 Euros per user per month. Unlimited users can manage up to 10,000 documents and have all the main features.

For 39 Euros per user per month, established companies may want to consider the Pro plan that allows unlimited document management and as much as 100 GB of storage.

A large company can contact Teedy about pricing for the Enterprise plan that will provide custom solutions for their needs.

Large companies and individuals can find the right document management solution by using Teedy. This is a powerful open-source document management tool that has something for business needs of all sizes. Give it a try today without any risk or obligation.

I,librarian

Industries that have to do a lot of research or academic work may find I,librarian, the perfect resource to help them manage PDF documents. This tool can store, manage, and organize your PDF Library in one centralized online location that several users can access.

You don't need to install software or apps in order to use this open-source tool, simply login by your web browser.

Features

No installation needed
Accessible by web browser
Batch importation available
Import patents and books
Download PDF metadata
Search for 100,000 records in seconds
Annotate PDFs
Project collaboration capability
Non-PDF files can be converted to PDF

Pricing

I, Librarian has several pricing plans available, including a free one. Casual users should consider the Lite plan for $2 a month. You can store an unlimited number of PDFs using this plan as well as utilize OCR (text character translation) in over 90 languages. For $3 per month, companies can subscribe to the Pro Plan which includes audio note recording and user groups for project management.

However, if you are a larger group that needs a managed server, you will pay from $75 a month to $150 a month. Your monthly fee depends on how much space you need (i.e, 60 GB to 120 GB).

Certain research facilities may want to incorporate the I, Librarian On-premises plan. This robust option creates an unlimited number of libraries, has IT Department support, and the potential for a perpetual license. Interested parties should contact the company for a quote.

Who said that libraries would be a thing of the past? The rise of the internet has put some of our libraries in danger. Luckily, companies such as I,Librarian have upgraded library research services for the modern user. If you are a researcher or part of an academic team, you may want to try I,librarian today.

OpenDocman

OpenDocMan is a web-based DMS written in PHP. Since it was developed under the open-source gpn license, customers are able to modify it any way they like. This DMS supports multiple file types and has easy automated installation and upgrades.

Individuals and Fortune 500 companies are now using it as a resource. OpenDocMan is still being actively developed, so look out for new features regularly.

Features

Support multiple languages including Chinese, German, and Spanish
User and departmental access control
Enhanced workflow
Supports all file types
Shows revision history
Easy installation
Automatic updates
Various search options such as by author, metadata, or comments

Pricing

Users can download the Community plan for free and self install it. This plan also requires self-support.

The SecureDocMan Cloud plan costs $79 monthly for 500 GB of storage and unlimited users. You can try this one for free for 30 days. It comes with instant access.

The SecureDocMan On-Prem, which provides on-premises installation, and OpenDocMan Enterprise, a more enhanced version of the PHP DMS,require potential customers to call for a quote.

Whether you want on premises installation or Cloud hosting, OpenDocMan can help you with online document hosting and alteration needs. If you are not sure this is right for you, remember you can test it out for 30 days.

SeedDMS

This document management system has a web-based user interface that is based on PHP and MySQL. It is ideal for small and medium-sized Enterprise businesses. Users can test the system out by viewing the demo installation. You have two different demo versions to choose from.

Features

Download a demo before installing
Web-based user interface
Text search
Supports multiple languages
Automation
Integrates with several extensions
Workflow engine
Notification capability
User and group management
Keeps different history of documents

Regarding extensions, there are several options available. You can download extensions to help import documents, count document downloads, and show various presentations of documents. There are even extensions to archive and preview emails.

Pricing

SeedDMS is a totally free open-source document management system. However, users can support further development by making a donation online at the main website. Such donations will go straight to the main developer, Uwe Steinmann.

You can contact the company for more support if you intend to integrate SeedDMS into your company's workflow. This would be a good time to make a donation to support new features and further enhancements.

Small and medium-sized companies that want to support a growing DMS system which utilizes PHP should consider installing and utilizing SeedDMS. While this DMS has been in development for 10 years, it is still growing and the right users and developers can be a part of it.

Everydocs-core

EveryDocs is a simple DMS for private use. It has basic functions that users can utilize through a web-based interface. It is a simple tool to organize your digital documents. Users need Ruby to install this DMS.

Features

Use folders and subfolders for organization
Create new accounts
Upload PDF with descriptive metadata
Web user interface
Mobile-friendly
REST- API for operation and processing
Can add people to documents

Pricing

At the moment, EveryDocs is free and accessible through Github. As stated earlier, you can simply download it yourself as long as you have Ruby installed.

If you are looking for a very simple document management system that is still growing through development, try downloading EveryDocs.

Final Thoughts on Open Source Document Management

Now that we have reviewed six of the top open source document management platforms, we have a better idea of what services they can provide. Some come with several bells and whistles while some are just very streamlined and perform one main service.

If you want to support current single developers on GitHub, you can utilize EveryDocs or SeedDMS. Bear in mind that SeedDMS can be utilized by small and mid-sized companies, while EveryDocs appears to be best for an individual - not a company. Either way, this is a good way to be a part of a growing DMS and possibly contribute to it.

Individuals can keep things very simple by downloading and fooling around with EveryDocs, but would have more resources and streamlined capabilities by using Papermerge.

Papermerge is great for both individuals and companies. Freelancers often have to deal with heavy documentation both online or with physical paperwork. A stay-at-home mom may need to keep track of several receipts and emails. A larger company may have several employee invoices and HR records to keep track of. Papermerge can help with either one of these business situations.

Do you have a large international company or a small one that communicates frequently with other countries? If so, OpenDocMan may be an ideal solution since it supports multiple languages ranging from Chinese to German to Portuguese to Spanish. If you don't have the budget for an in-house translator, the language support from this DMS may be a good solution.

I, Librarian sounds like something I wish I had when I was in graduate school. Higher education usually involves a great deal of PDF printouts or online scrolling. Handling heavy 100-page documents for each class every week could often be cumbersome. Using resources on I,Librarian can give necessary users access to needed documentation without having to download or print. The annotation and batch importation options are especially useful for both teachers and students alike when it comes to making important notes.

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