Top 12 Free/Open source Document Management System Software 2021 (2023)

Open Source Document Management Software is necessary for any enterprise or organization to manage all the documents in an efficient manner. If you are a startup or small and medium business and not want to spend the money on paid Document Mangement solution then you can go for an Open-source. There are some well known enterprise-grade Document management systems software available those are not only free but also a reliable and scalable Document management system. But things those come free at no cost also have some disadvantage. There are some features that you can only find in the paid one and especially the support. Another useful article:List of Open Source Mail servers

Best Opensource Document Management systems

What isDocument Management Software?

Document Management Software is meant to manage and organize the digital copy of all documents generated by a company. The large organizations generate lots of e-documents on a daily basis and it bit difficult to manage them manually. The DMS software comes with an intuitive interface to track, store and manage files in a hassle-free manner. The electronic documentmanagement software helps to get rid of storing the documents physically and saves storage space. Also, they support all types of File Formats that is the other reason why companies using them.

Openkm Enterprise

OpenKM is an electronic document management system and record management system EDRMS ( DMS, RMS, CMS ). The OpenKM is based on open technology like Java, Tomcat, GWT,Lucene, Hibernate, Spring and jBPM. The OpenKM works well with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Safari as it based on Web 2.0. It supports all major DBMS databases such as Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and others.

It allows users to set different rules and logic to automate the documentation process. For example, you can set a rule, document move to a new destination, change security, applying document transformations (converting to PDF with group4 compression) among others. This document management system has OpenKM plug-in architecture that makes it so easily extensible.

The OpenKM DMS can handle all common files types such as text, Office, Office 2007, OpenOffice, PDF, HTML, XML, MP3, JPEG, etc.It is one of the best opensource document management system.

There are two versions of OpenKM one is Open source community version and other is a professional edition.

Openkm DMS software Features

• Web-based Open Document Management System, Automatic key extraction,OCR integration, Antivirus integration
• Thesaurus, categories, keyword cloud and metadata navigator
• Microsoft Office AddIns, OpenOffice Add-On, AutoCAD preview
• Watermark ( text – image ) and Digital signature
• Generate new documents with a wizard using predefined templates and forms
• Cryptography to encrypt and decrypt documents
• WebDAV andProgrammable automatic cataloguing
• Workflow ( jBPM )
• Mobile interface ( iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc. ) andGoogle Apps Synchronization
• Webservices API and Extensible frontend API
• Integrated with LDAP and Active Directory
• OpenMeetings integration
• HTML Editor, Forum, and Wiki
• Zoho integration
• Joomla explorer component
• Expiration of documents
• Dropbox integration

LogicalDOC

LogicalDOC is another Open source Document management system (DMS) software available in both Community Edition and Professional editions. The Open source LogicalDOC is distributed under the GNU license and source code is available for the entire community, it means anyone can modify, redistribute and free to use it. The downside of its community edition is no client sync a local directory with the repository.

Features:

• Multilingual and Desktop Web Interface
• Multilingual Full-text Indexing
• Tags, Metadata & Templates support
• Version Control and Document Searching
• Bookmarking
• Import from ZIP archives
• Check-in & Check-out
• Send as E-mail or Download
• Ticket
• Internal Messaging System
• Integrated Contacts and Addressbook
• Rating
• Users and Groups
• Security Policies on Menus and Folders
• Document Password Protection
• Task Manager and Events Log
• Configurable run levels and aspects
• Local File System
• Basic Statistics and standard reports
• HTTP & HTTPS protocols
• Web Services (SOAP & RESTful)
• WebDAV and CMIS
• WordPress andJoomla explorer
• Dropbox integration

VIENNA Advantage

VIENNA Advantage is an enterprise-level document management system tightly integrated with ERP and CRM. It can install either on your own private cloud to create a cloud-based document management system or on the Enterprise Cloud offered by VIENNA Advantage. It also covers Sales Force Automation, Order Management, Materials Management, HR, Payroll, Workflow Management and much more. It is written in C#.Net with an HTML5 UI. This project is divided into two parts one is the Application Development Framework and second is Functional modules. The thing which needs to be noted that the core ERP of the VIENNA is free but DMS is supplementary and user have to shell out some money to add DMS. Because of the features and knowledge purpose, it is here.

VIENNA Advantage DMS Features

• Document Input. Indexing, Search and Processing
• Inbuilt Word Processor
• Deploy on-premises or on cloud
• Multi-Lingualand Tenants
• Scanner, Email, Manual Upload and Bulk Upload
• Automated Process for Mass Uploading
• Mobile Applications and Web Services
• Indexing of all documents,Meta Data, and revisions
• Custom Automatic Document Numbering
• OCR in 27 languages
• Workflow and Document Inbox
• Alerts and Notifications, and Reporting Dashboard
• Inbuilt Calendar, Email, SMS, Follow-ups, and Chat
• Safe and Powerful search
• Document content and metadata search
• Advanced search on all document attributes
• Scalable Document Search Engine
• Audit Trail
• Integrated with ERP and CRM
• User and Roles
• Advanced Access rights
• Encrypted Documents on the file system
• Supports SSL
• Modify Ownership

SeeddmsEnterprise DMS

SeedDMS is an Opensource PHP based DMS that supports MySQL or sqlite3 as the database. It is an enterprise-ready DMS platform for sharing and storing documents. It was known as LetoDMS. The Seeddms also supports mobile interface and can use on Smartphone in a much efficient manner due to bootstrap and optimized UI.

Seeddms PHP DMS features:

• Preview images for attachments
• Support metadata like the author, keywords, a description, and arbitrary attributes.
• Common file types like PDF, MS Word, MS Excel can be indexed for full-text search.
• Multi-level content directory for supporting more than 32000 documents
• Workflow for document review and approval
• Password forgotten function
• Fully web-based UI
• Versions control
• Users and groups management
• External authentication
• Fine-grained notification upon changes
• workflow for document review and approval
• Access control lists
• Full-text search
• WebDAV access
• Multi-language support

Alfresco Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

The Alfresco is another good but complex open-source DMS that is designed for enterprises. The company provides the software to enterprises with a content repository, image management, web content management, document management and more. The Alfresco open-source DMS is easy to deploy but the community edition will not get any direct support from the Alfresco.

The Alfresco community edition runs on the variety of operating system because it deployed as a Java web application But the common operating used to install the Alfresco are Ubuntu and SUSE. It supports 64bit systems, runs on Apache Tomcat and JDK 8, and supports MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.

Alfresco community editionFeatures

• Robust content repository
• Productive team collaboration web interface
• One can access Alfresco as a network drive natively within Windows or Mac
• Productivity app integration such as Microsoft Office and Google Docs
• Add-ons support to download and install extensions maintain by the community to extend the DMS capabilities.
• Customization — create custom content models and bespoke workflows
• Alfresco Mobile apps for iOS and Android (including SDKs)
• Source code publicly available

Nuxeo Enterprise Content Management

Nuxeo is an Open source Knowledge and Document management system. You can download it free in the multiple formats such as Windows .exe package, VMware images, Virtual Box Images and Multi-platform packages. Once you have downloaded the platform you can use the 30-days free trial of Nuxeo online services for additional guidance and support. Nuxeo has a marketplace for a large section of ready to use plugins and packages to extend the functionality of your application.

Nuxeo ECM Features

• Rich meta-data
• Support for all content types
• native workflow
• Support all common files types including rich content such as audio, video, and images
• Elasticsearch
• Storyboard creation
• Automated renditions
• Native content and process analytics
• Integration with business and productivity apps such as Adobe Creative Suite, Office 365, Slack, Google Drive/Docs.

Casebox

Casebox is an Apache web-based document management system and 100% open source. It is a customizable application and can extend overtime as contact management, project management, and human resource management.

It allows you to read any documents such WOrd, JPEG, PDF online without downloading them or using any other external application. As it is a web-based application, so there is no need for sync which increases security and privacy.

CaseboxWeb DMS Features

• Preview your files
• Unlimited version control
• Metadata fields
• Document Viewer
• Graphs and Charts
• Full-text search
• Multiple tabs: allow to open and work on several documents simultaneously.
• Undelete: Deleted files can restore from the Recycle bin
• Version Control
• Forms with conditional logic: Allow to build forms using conditional logic.
• Repeatable fields: Can add same fields in the form more than once such as a person with multiple addresses
• Personalized forms: Feature to create your own custom forms to capture various types of information.
• Comments
• Tasks
• Two-factor authentication: SupportGoogle Authenticator and Yubikeys.
• And more…

Feng Office

Feng is another well open-source document management system and project manager. It is not only a DMS platform but more than that, it comes with Task Management, Workspace Management, Time Tracking, Knowledge Management and other productivity features makes it one of the best open-source document management software.

Feng Office community edition Features:

• Workspace Management
• Documents
• Automatic alerts and reminders
• Contact management
• Timesheet
• Basic reports and Tags
• Task templates andWorkflow processes
• Notes
• Calendar
• Wiki and Forum support

Maarch Courrier (DMS)

Maarch Courrier is a PHP based Document Management System that includes electronic mail processing, scan connectors, mailroom management, workflow, content management, version control, workflow, office templates, statistics, etc.

Features

• Customizable metadata
• Mail & RSS alerts and events notifications
• MSOffice, OpenOffice, LibreOffice templates with online updating
• Mail management workflow
• Full OAIS archiving
• Support Postgres, Oracle, MySQL, SQLServer, DB2 database
• Compatible with Smartphone
• Signing documents

OpenDocMan

OpenDocMan is an open-source document management system written in PHP and can run inside of any PHP5- enabled web server such as Apache2. It supports MySQL 5 as database and can use on any type of operating system using the browser. It 100% web-based document management system and features an automatic installer and updater.

OpenSource DMS Features

• Support almost every type of files
• Metadata fields and categorization support
• Revision history
• File expiration
• Create custom document properties to match your companies needs
• Workflow
• Automated document review and file expiration process
• Search
• Indexing
• Security
• Fine-grained user access control
• Departmental access control for each file
• Multiple Language Support

Mayan EDMS

Mayan EDMS is a Free Open Source Electronic Document Management System written in Python. It uses Django web application framework and provides an electronic vault or repository for electronic documents. It allows saving securely all documents fromfloods, fire, theft, sabotage, fungus or decomposition. It comes with advanced search and categorization capabilities.

Kimios

Kimios is a lightweight document management software and can be an alternative to heavy ECM systems (Enterprise Content Management).
The Kimios provides direct Windows Desktop and Microsoft environmentintegration but under the commercial license. Kimios is based on a fully Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The Kimios works on the client-server model. All the supported third-party client’s such Web client,Kimios Explorer, Kimios for Office connected to Kimios central server that exposes the web service layer to covers all DMS features.

KimiosDocument Management Features:

• Create / Update / Delete documents
• Version control to restore the documents
• Customize the repository using metadata
• Connect third parties application to provide meta-values and index
• Customizable search engine
• Bookmarks documents
• Create advanced search requests and bookmarks
• Checkin / Checkout feature
• User rights management
• Standards authentications and security system
• Informations system integration

Note: TheKimios last updated around 3 years ago…

Recently, I got a mail from a person looking for a simple document management system, he tried all above given DMS but he thought they all are complex but he needs something very basic and after a couple of days, he suggested us to add a simple File sharing software works for his NGO. So, I thought, I should have to mention it here…

FileRun document management system

The Filerun is a simple file-sharing software that comes with server and client architecture and totally free. It is not a complete and full-fledged document management system but it can be used for basic file and media management. It supports docs, pictures, and music. The server part can install onUbuntu, CentOS, Synology, and Docker. For the client, it has options for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.

To extend the compatibility and functions, it has plugins forGoogle Docs Editor,Zoho Editor, ONLYOFFICE, Google Docs Viewer, Office Web View, Pixlr, Adobe Creative Cloud, Autodesk- Preview CAD files, CloudConvert to convert files from one format to another,Zamzar, Google Earth- Plott KML & KMZ files andBing Maps.
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