Best open-source e-signature software
DocuSeal is the most adopted open-source e-signature project by GitHub stars and Docker pulls, Documenso is the close second with a modern code base, and OpenSign is the third option, while docuinked is closed source and only worth a look if you want a hosted service instead.
How we picked
We read each project's GitHub repository through the GitHub API on 2026-11-07, plus its pricing page. We looked at the licence, how active the project is, whether you can run it yourself, and what costs money. We name docuinked only to be clear about where it stands: it is not open source.
The projects side by side
| DocuSeal | Documenso | OpenSign | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | AGPL-3.0, plus an attribution term | AGPL-3.0, with a separate commercial licence for enterprise code | AGPL-3.0, with a carve-out line |
| GitHub stars on 2026-11-07 | 19,011 | 15,681 | 7,234 |
| Docker pulls | 2.81M | 934k | 124k |
| Created | 2023-07 | 2023-03 | 2023-10 |
| Hosted plan | Basic $0, Pro $20 a user a month | Free, then $25, $40 and $250 a month | Pricing from third parties only |
| Self-hosted paid tier | On-prem Pro $240 a user a year | Enterprise licence by quote | Paid self-hosted plan needed for a production API, price not given |
| API | $0.20 a completed document | No per-document fee listed | Uses credits on paid plans (third party) |
The projects in short
DocuSeal. The most stars and the most pulls. It has the widest feature set of the three, takes DOCX and HTML as sources, and offers an EU cloud. Its licence adds a term that keeps the DocuSeal attribution in the interface, so read it before you change the look.
Documenso. A TypeScript code base with a published year in review: at the end of 2025 it reported 340 or more paying customers and about 400,000 documents. Some features sit in an enterprise folder under a commercial licence, so check which ones you need.
OpenSign. Free signing in the portal, with API, bulk and embedding drawing on credits in paid plans, per a third party. Its own pricing page did not render for us, so confirm prices with the project.
What self-hosting means in practice
Self-hosting gives you the code and the data on your own server. It also gives you the jobs a hosted service does: certificates for the seal, a timestamp source, email delivery that lands in inboxes, backups, upgrades and security fixes. One more point comes up in disputes. If you run the server, the other side can say you could have changed the log. Some buyers prefer a neutral host for that reason, and some don't care.
Where docuinked fits
docuinked is closed source and hosted only. The first 5 completed documents are free, then $9 a month. Its reason to exist is narrow: an agent or workflow can prepare a document, a named person approves the exact draft, and only the signer signs, enforced on the server. Every finished PDF gets a PAdES seal with an outside timestamp, and anyone can check it with the free PDF checker. If open code matters most, pick one of the three projects above. See our pages on DocuSeal and Documenso for the head-to-head view.
Where the open-source projects are better
- You must run it on your own servers, for policy or data reasons.
- You want to read and change the code.
- You need EU hosting today. DocuSeal offers an EU cloud. We don't.
- You need DOCX or HTML sources. We take PDFs only.
Sources
Checked 2026-11-07.
- DocuSeal on GitHub and DocuSeal on Docker Hub
- DocuSeal pricing and DocuSeal home page
- Documenso on GitHub and Documenso pricing
- Documenso 2025 year in review
- OpenSign on GitHub
- Verdocs on OpenSign pricing, a competitor's page
docuinked is not affiliated with or endorsed by any project named here. All names belong to their owners.
Common questions
Does AGPL stop me using these tools in a business?
No. You can run them commercially. The licence matters if you change the code and offer it to others over a network, because you may then have to share your changes. Ask a lawyer if you plan to build on one.
Is there an open-source alternative to Docusign that needs no server?
Not in the self-hosted sense. All three projects also sell a hosted cloud plan, which is the easy way to try them before you run your own.
Why isn't docuinked open source?
We chose to run it as a neutral hosted service and put our effort into the approval rule and the evidence. That is a trade-off, and it is the main reason to pick one of the projects above instead.
Related
Try it in test mode
Free during the beta. Test keys send no email, so you can build the whole flow first.