About Paperless-ngx
Paperless-ngx stores documents, runs OCR and lets you find a page by the words on it. You consume a folder or upload in the browser. Tags and correspondents organise the archive. It continues earlier Paperless projects.
Why it exists
Offices kept scans in shared drives where the filename was the only index. Reading the page makes the archive searchable.
Who uses it
Small offices, finance teams and anyone who must keep invoices and letters.
What it is used for
A searchable document archive. It is not general file sync and it is not an ERP.
Open source behind the product
There is no separate paid edition of Paperless-ngx. The GPL application is the product. It uses a Python web app, Redis, a database, and optional Apache Tika and Gotenberg containers when you consume Office files.
How to run it on a server
- Use the Docker Compose files in the project documentation. They start the web app, a worker, Redis and the database.
- Give the media volume enough disk for every document and its archive copy.
- Put HTTPS in front if people reach it beyond your own network.
- Back up the media volume and the database. OCR uses CPU. Size the host for new scans, not only for the web page.
Follow the project's own guide for the version you install. Commands and file names change between releases.
How to contribute
The paperless-ngx repository welcomes docs, bug reports and small pull requests. Read the contributing notes before you change the consume pipeline.
- Read the project's guidelines. Open the repository and look for CONTRIBUTING, the code of conduct and the README.
- Find something to work on. Browse good first issues or all open issues. Documentation and bug reports count.
- Make a small change. Fork the repository, work on a branch, and keep the change focused.
- Open a pull request. Say what changed and why, and link the issue. See open pull requests.
Contributions are accepted under the project's own licence (GPL-3.0). Some projects also ask you to sign a contributor agreement. A doc fix or a reproduced bug is a real contribution.
Licence: GPL-3.0
Copyleft. You can use and modify it, including commercially. If you distribute it or a derived work, you must share the source under the same licence.
This is a plain-English guide, not legal advice. Read the licence in the repository before you ship it or sell a service on top of it.