3 jobs · 6 apps
Best open source OCR tools you can self-host
To turn scans into searchable text, the best self-hosted picks are Paperless-ngx for searchable document archives, Stirling-PDF for OCR on PDFs and images and TaxHacker for reading receipts. Each pick was chosen by hand for its job from apps whose own description or topics match it, and is shown with GitHub data from October 2026.
Every app here mentions OCR (optical character recognition) in its own description or topics: PDF toolkits that run OCR on files, and document archives that OCR every scan they ingest.
Updated · data from GitHub, refreshed nightly
Top picks
- Rank 1:
Paperless-ngx
paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx
Scan, index, and archive all of your paper documents with an improved interface (fork of Paperless).
Document ManagementPythonDockerAI-nativePaperless-ngx has 46,308 GitHub stars, uses the GPL-3.0 license, ships a Docker image and had 1,625 commits in the last year.
- Rank 2:
Docspell
eikek/docspell
Auto-tagging document organizer and archive.
Document ManagementElmDockerDocspell has 2,333 GitHub stars, uses the AGPL-3.0 license, ships a Docker image and had 77 commits in the last year.
- Rank 3:
Papermerge
papermerge/papermerge-core
Document management system focused on scanned documents (electronic archives). Features file browsing in similar way to dropbox/google drive. OCR, full text search, text overlay/selection.
Document ManagementPythonDockerPapermerge has 542 GitHub stars, uses the Apache-2.0 license, ships a Docker image and had 193 commits in the last year.
1 of 3 · 3 picks
Document archives with OCR
- 1
Paperless-ngx
Scan, index, and archive all of your paper documents with an improved interface (fork of Paperless).
Document ManagementDockerAI-nativePaperless-ngx has 46,308 GitHub stars, uses the GPL-3.0 license, ships a Docker image and had 1,625 commits in the last year.
- 2
Docspell
Auto-tagging document organizer and archive.
Document ManagementDockerDocspell has 2,333 GitHub stars, uses the AGPL-3.0 license, ships a Docker image and had 77 commits in the last year.
- 3
Papermerge
Document management system focused on scanned documents (electronic archives). Features file browsing in similar way to dropbox/google drive. OCR, full text search, text overlay/selection.
Document ManagementDockerPapermerge has 542 GitHub stars, uses the Apache-2.0 license, ships a Docker image and had 193 commits in the last year.
2 of 3 · 2 picks
PDF and file toolkits with OCR
- 1
Stirling-PDF
Local hosted web application that allows you to perform various operations on PDF files, such as merging, splitting, file conversions and OCR.
Document ManagementDockerStirling-PDF has 93,634 GitHub stars, uses the Apache-2.0 license, ships a Docker image and had 1,925 commits in the last year; it replaces Adobe Acrobat.
- 2
SnapOtter
Suite of 200+ web tools for converting and editing images, videos, audio and PDFs, including a layer-based image editor, OCR, transcription, background removal and batch processing pipelines…
Document ManagementDockerAI-nativeSnapOtter has 2,782 GitHub stars, uses the AGPL-3.0 license, ships a Docker image and had 689 commits in the last year.
3 of 3 · 1 pick
Receipts and invoices
- 1
TaxHacker
Self-hosted AI accounting app that extracts data from receipts and invoices, converts currencies and organizes income and expenses.
Accounting & InvoicingDockerAI-nativeTaxHacker has 6,734 GitHub stars, uses the MIT license, ships a Docker image and had 69 commits in the last year.
What is the best open source OCR software?
To turn scans into searchable text, the best self-hosted picks are Paperless-ngx for searchable document archives, Stirling-PDF for OCR on PDFs and images and TaxHacker for reading receipts. Each pick was chosen by hand for its job from apps whose own description or topics match it, and is shown with GitHub data from October 2026.
Which open source OCR tool is best for scanned paper?
Paperless-ngx is built for it: scan, index and archive paper documents, with OCR so they become searchable. Docspell and Papermerge are document archives in the same spirit.
Is Paperless-ngx free?
Yes. Paperless-ngx is open-source software released under the GPL-3.0 license, so you can self-host it at no cost. You only pay for the server it runs on, and some projects also offer an optional paid cloud plan.
Can I run this stack with Docker?
All 6 apps here publish Docker images, including Paperless-ngx, Docspell and Papermerge, so most of the stack can run side by side with Docker Compose on one server. Size the server for the heaviest app and add off-site backups.
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