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Comparison · Collab
Paperless-ngx vs Shiori
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Paperless-ngx and Shiori — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:self-hosted
Paperless-ngx vs Shiori: at a glance
What is Paperless-ngx?
Paperless-ngx shipped its 3.0 rewrite, then spent a week putting out the fires.
3.0.0 landed on July 22 after a long beta, carrying both the largest feature set in the project's history and nine breaking changes. The five releases since are pure repair: a broken migration in 3.0.1 that forced an immediate 3.0.2, then three patch rounds covering OCR skipping, permission-filtered dedup, Gotenberg conversion, email date parsing, AI suggestion caching and search index edge cases. The pace tells you 3.0 shipped into real deployments fast.
What is Shiori?
A Go bookmark manager rebuilding itself around an API — and only ever shipping release candidates.
Shiori is a self-hosted read-later and bookmark tool whose recent history is entirely release candidates: v1.7.0-rc.2, rc.3, v1.7.2-rc.1, v1.8.0-rc.1. The visible work has moved off the web UI and into an API v1 surface — tag endpoints, bookmark-tag association, filtering and counts — plus infrastructure like proxy-header authentication and SQLite performance. The last tagged release in this window is from July 2025.
Paperless-ngx vs Shiori: editorial side-by-side
Paperless-ngx
6.3COLLAB
Paperless-ngx shipped its 3.0 rewrite, then spent a week putting out the fires.
◆ Current state
3.0.0 landed on July 22 after a long beta, carrying both the largest feature set in the project's history and nine breaking changes. The five releases since are pure repair: a broken migration in 3.0.1 that forced an immediate 3.0.2, then three patch rounds covering OCR skipping, permission-filtered dedup, Gotenberg conversion, email date parsing, AI suggestion caching and search index edge cases. The pace tells you 3.0 shipped into real deployments fast.
◆ Where it's heading
The project has moved from a document scanner-and-tagger to a document platform with AI in the core: Paperless AI, remote OCR via Azure, a document parser plugin framework, tantivy replacing Whoosh for search, file versions and sharelink bundles. The breaking changes are the other half of that story — dropping API v1, Python 3.10, document encryption and the old consumer clears the decks for that platform. Recent patches keep touching LLM plumbing, including passing output language into chat and adding docstrings so the classifier reads better as an LLM tool.
◆ Prediction
The 3.0.x patch cadence looks set to run at least another round or two — 3.0.5 is still landing search-compatibility and AI-suggestion fixes rather than tapering. Feature work resuming before that queue empties would be the surprise.
Shiori
0.0COLLAB
A Go bookmark manager rebuilding itself around an API — and only ever shipping release candidates.
◆ Current state
Shiori is a self-hosted read-later and bookmark tool whose recent history is entirely release candidates: v1.7.0-rc.2, rc.3, v1.7.2-rc.1, v1.8.0-rc.1. The visible work has moved off the web UI and into an API v1 surface — tag endpoints, bookmark-tag association, filtering and counts — plus infrastructure like proxy-header authentication and SQLite performance. The last tagged release in this window is from July 2025.
◆ Where it's heading
The project is converting from a web app with an API bolted on into an API-first service with a client, and the login component, PWA and theme work are being rewritten around that split. Proxy forward-header authentication in particular is a deployment-shape decision: it assumes Shiori sits behind an authenticating reverse proxy rather than owning identity itself. The RC-only tagging pattern makes it hard to tell what the maintainers consider stable.
◆ Prediction
The next step is presumably a final v1.8.0 consolidating the API v1 tag work, though nothing in these entries indicates the RC-to-stable promotion is scheduled. If the pattern holds, the following RC continues on API endpoints rather than the UI.
Alternatives to Paperless-ngx and Shiori
Other Collab products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Paperless-ngx or Shiori.
Contractbook
Contract automation grows up: admin permission maps, 2FA, and forms that do their own arithmetic.
Tana
The knowledge graph quietly turned itself into a meetings product.
Miniflux
A minimal RSS reader that made passkeys the only way in, then went back to polishing the reading experience.
Kavita
A self-hosted reading server that spent two releases becoming infrastructure, then paid for it with a CVE.
FreshRSS
FreshRSS keeps turning a reader into a queryable archive — and hardening the parts that touch the web.
See all Paperless-ngx alternatives → · See all Shiori alternatives →
Recent activity from Paperless-ngx and Shiori
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoPaperless-ngxFifth 3.0 patch round: AI cache keying and search date units
- 7d agoPaperless-ngxPaperless-ngx v3.0.4
- 9d agoPaperless-ngxPaperless-ngx v3.0.3
- 11d agoPaperless-ngxPaperless-ngx v3.0.1
- 11d agoPaperless-ngxPaperless-ngx v3.0.2
- 12d agoPaperless-ngxPaperless-ngx v3.0.0 ⚡
- 1y agoShioriAPI v1 gains tag endpoints, filtering and counts; proxy header auth
- 1y agoShioriSwagger UI disabled by default; session auth and Postgres fixes
- 2y agoShioriLight, dark and system theme selection in the web UI
- 2y agoShioriHome button clears the active search query
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Paperless-ngx and Shiori?
Both compete on the same themes — self-hosted — within Collab. Paperless-ngx is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Paperless-ngx better than Shiori?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Paperless-ngx is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Collab products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Paperless-ngx?
Top Paperless-ngx alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Paperless-ngx alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/paperless-ngx for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Shiori?
Top Shiori alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Shiori alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/shiori for the full list with editorial commentary on each.