Open Source DMS as Software as a Service (SaaS)

Paperless-ngx –
Document management in the German cloud

With Paperless-ngx, you get a powerful document management system (DMS) as open-source software, which we offer as a fully-fledged Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. We not only take care of the ongoing operation of the cloud hosting, but also all updates, backups and maintenance of Paperless-ngx for you. Thanks to our professional support, you can fully concentrate on your core business while we ensure the smooth functionality of Paperless-ngx. With our reliable infrastructure and expertise in digital solutions, your documents are always protected and available.

DMS Cloud - Paperless-ngx Hosting
DSGVO konform, deutsche Cloud, klimaneutral

Benefits of Paperless-ngx SaaS

Docs Docs

Numerous file formats

Paperless-ngx processes PDF files, images, plain text files, office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and LibreOffice documents) and other formats.

Search Search

Text recognition and full-text search

Paperless-ngx performs OCR on your documents and adds searchable text to them. This makes all documents searchable using full-text search.

E-mail processing

Paperless-ngx automatically imports documents from email accounts, indexes them and allows you to set up multiple accounts with individual rules.

Hosting in Germany

ISO/IEC 27001 certification, daily backups, redundant connection and GDPR-compliant data storage in Germany.

Secure thanks to encryption

Our platform ensures secure, encrypted data transmission and reliably protects your documents from unauthorized access.

Optional support

Do you need further assistance with the structure and integration of the DMS solution into your IT? We would be happy to support you!

Paperless-ngx Plans

Our offer is aimed exclusively at commercial customers. All prices are net plus VAT.

One month free per year with annual payment.

The contract term and billing period for Paperless-ngx as a SaaS product is one month with monthly payment and 12 months with annual payment.

If you require a customized Paperless NGX solution, please contact us and we will work with you to plan a solution tailored to your requirements.

Monthly payment
Annual payment

  • Paperless-ngx
    Start

  • € 29.00per month plus VAT
  • Suitable for
  • Number of users
  • Technical support
  • Guarantied response time
  • 24-hour emergency hotline, 365 days a year
  • Provision
  • Own IPv4 or IPv6 address included
  • Use your own subdomain. E.g., paperless.yourcompany.com
  • Managed server, Paperless-ngx updates, and proactive monitoring included
  • Included vCPU
  • Storage space
  • Expandable storage
  • Expandable resources (vCPU, RAM)
  • Daily backup in external data center and storage
  • Additional server snapshots
  • External additional firewall included (Managed by cloudshift®)
  • Additional VPN available at extra cost
  • Defined SLA for availability
  • Contact us

  • Paperless-ngx
    Start

  • € 29.00per month plus VAT
  • Small businesses, beginners
  • Unlimited.
    (Recommended for up to approx. 30 concurrent users)
  • Email
  • SaaS in your own private cloud
    Own managed vServer
  • Only domain provided: yourcompany.clientapp.de
  • 2
  • 40 GB
    Minus Paperless-ngx installation
  • 7 days
  • Contact us

  • Paperless-ngx
    Business

  • € 69.00per month plus VAT
  • Medium-sized companies
  • Unlimited.
    (Recommended for up to approx. 100 concurrent users)
  • Email
  • 24 h
  • SaaS in your own private cloud
    Own managed vServer
  • 4
  • 80 GB
    Minus Paperless-ngx installation
  • 7 days
  • 99,7%
  • Contact us

  • Paperless-ngx
    Premium
    with phone support

  • € 129.00per month plus VAT
  • Medium and large companies with higher requirements for SLA, backup, and security
  • Unlimited.
    (Recommended for up to approx. 100 concurrent users)
  • Email, telephone during business hours
  • 12 h
  • Optional extra
    + €150.00 plus VAT per month
  • SaaS in your own private cloud
    Own managed vServer
  • 4
  • 80 GB
    Minus Paperless-ngx installation
  • 14 days
  • 2 server snapshots included
  • 99,9%
  • Contact us
  • Paperless-ngx
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Your step towards a paperless office – with DMS in the cloud

Discover the advantages of Paperless-ngx as a SaaS solution, hosted in our German data center to ensure full GDPR compliance. With our solution, you benefit from the highest data sovereignty and security, so that sensitive information is always protected. Thanks to Paperless-ngx as a SaaS, you are able to efficiently design your document processes and at the same time protect the environment by relying on paperless processes.

Our platform offers you the option of managing, sharing and archiving documents digitally, which not only increases productivity but also contributes to cost savings and improved collaboration within the company. What’s more, using Paperless-ngx as a SaaS solution allows you to work flexibly from anywhere and at any time, without compromising on security. With a user-friendly interface and intuitive operation, you are well equipped to optimize and effectively manage your document processes. Choose Paperless-ngx as your SaaS solution and benefit from a reliable, secure and efficient solution that keeps your company data in the best of hands.

Frequently asked questions about Paperless-ngx SaaS

Paperless-ngx is a modern, open-source document management system (DMS) designed to manage the entire lifecycle of digital documents. It automates the scanning, importing, indexing and archiving of documents – whether they are PDFs, images, plain text files or Office documents. Key features include:

  • Automated document import: Documents are automatically loaded into the system via various interfaces (e.g. email, watch folders).
  • Optical Character Recognition (OCR): Integrated OCR technology extracts text even from image files, making the content searchable.
  • Indexing and full-text search: All imported documents are indexed, enabling a fast and precise full-text search.
  • Metadata management and tagging: Users can tag documents with keywords and additional metadata, which improves organization and subsequent retrieval.
  • User-friendly web interface: An intuitive interface makes it easy to manage, search and edit documents.
  • Security and access control: Features such as HTTPS encryption and detailed permission management ensure secure access.

Paperless-ngx attaches great importance to the protection of stored documents and transmitted data. Important security aspects include:

  • Data transmission: Communication with the web interface and between services is secured via HTTPS to prevent eavesdropping and manipulation.
  • Access control: User rights and roles are managed in detail so that only authorized users can access certain documents or functions.
  • Two-factor authentication (2FA) can be enabled in Paperless-ngx.
  • Storage security: Documents are stored in secure directories.
  • Regular updates: Continuous updates ensure that known security vulnerabilities are closed promptly. cloudshift® takes care of these updates for you, so you always have maximum protection.
  • Backup and recovery: We automatically back up all data at least once a day to an external and physically separate data center.

Yes, it is entirely possible to further increase security by integrating Paperless-ngx into your company network via a VPN (Virtual Private Network). We offer this option starting with the “Premium” plan.

What is a VPN?

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) establishes an encrypted and secure connection between a device (e.g., laptop or server) and the internal company network via the Internet. You can think of it as a protected tunnel through which all data is transmitted. This ensures that no unauthorized third parties can read or manipulate the data traffic.

How does a VPN increase the security of Paperless-ngx?

By integrating Paperless-ngx into your VPN, you benefit from several advantages:

  • Access restriction: The application can only be accessed via the VPN. This means that Paperless-ngx is not publicly accessible on the internet, which significantly reduces the attack surface.
  • Encrypted transmission: All data, including sensitive documents and login details, is transmitted in encrypted form.
  • Integration into your internal network: You can configure Paperless-ngx to communicate with other internal systems such as file storage, user directories (e.g., Active Directory), or backup solutions.

Implementation in practice

You need a VPN to set it up. We currently support Tailscale®. We can then configure Paperless-ngx to accept requests from the VPN only. Employees then connect to Paperless-ngx via Tailscale®, while the rest of the network traffic continues to flow through your usual network as normal.

Overall, this solution is a very effective measure for significantly increasing the security and data protection of your document management.

Setting up a VPN is an additional service. Please contact us and we will plan the VPN connection together with you.

SaaS stands for “Software as a Service” and in the case of Paperless-ngx, this means that the entire application is offered as a cloud-based service. This means:

  • Hosted solution: Paperless-ngx is operated by cloudshift® and hosted on its servers, so you do not need your own infrastructure or hardware. You do not share a server with other customers and each Paperless-ngx environment runs on its own virtual server.
  • Maintenance and updates: All technical aspects such as regular security updates, backups and system maintenance are carried out centrally by the provider, relieving you of administrative tasks.
  • Accessibility: You can access the application from anywhere via a web interface without having to go through complicated installation processes.
  • Subscription model: Instead of a large one-time investment, you pay a monthly fee, which makes the costs calculable and often attractive for smaller companies as well.
  • Scalability: The service dynamically adapts to your needs – whether you want to manage a few or a large number of documents, the underlying infrastructure is scaled accordingly.

In short, SaaS at Paperless-ngx means that you get a powerful, always up-to-date and secure document management solution without having to worry about the technical details.

Efficient document management and search is at the core of Paperless-ngx:

  • Indexing: After import, each document is indexed using metadata (e.g. creation date, file name, tags) and the extracted OCR text.
  • Full-text search: Thanks to OCR integration, content in scanned documents can also be searched. The search function supports complex queries and filters, so users can quickly find what they are looking for.
  • Filters and tags: Documents can be tagged manually or automatically. Filter functions allow documents to be sorted by type, date, origin or other criteria.
  • Web interface: A clear and responsive web interface allows you to view, edit, and delete documents or organize them in folders – often supplemented by functions such as bookmarks or favorites.
  • Advanced administration: In addition, functions such as editing metadata, adding notes, or merging documents are available to optimally support your daily work.

Paperless-ngx is designed to process as many common document types as possible. Supported file formats include, but are not limited to:

  • PDF files: Both native PDFs and those that have been added via OCR, such as scanned documents.
  • Image files: Formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF and other common image formats, which are mainly used when scanning documents.
  • Simple text files: Plain text files that can be indexed directly.
  • Office documents: These include Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the corresponding LibreOffice formats.
  • Other formats: Extensions or plug-ins can be used to support other file types to meet individual requirements.

The integrated OCR function in Paperless-ngx uses generally known OCR engines (such as Tesseract) to recognize the text contained in scanned or image-based documents. The process usually goes as follows:

  • Document import: When importing a document, it is checked whether it is an image or a scanned PDF.
  • OCR processing: If it is, the OCR engine is activated to extract the text and add it to the document as searchable text.
  • Language support: By default, the OCR engine used supports numerous languages – often English, German, French, Spanish and many more. If necessary, additional language packs can be installed to cover less common languages.
  • Search integration: The extracted text is indexed together with the documents, enabling an effective full-text search.

Paperless-ngx offers several mechanisms for automatically importing and indexing documents into the system:

  • Watch folders: Specific directories are monitored. As soon as new files are saved in these folders, they are imported automatically (this option requires a VPN, which is included in the “Premium” plan and above).
  • Email import: Attachments can be automatically imported and processed via configured email accounts.
  • Batch import: Manual or scheduled batch imports are also possible, whereby large quantities of documents are imported at defined intervals (this option requires a VPN, which is included in the “Premium” tariff and above).
  • Indexing: During or immediately after import, documents are indexed based on metadata (date, file name, sender, etc.) and the extracted OCR text. This enables fast and accurate full-text searches within the entire document collection.

Yes, you can integrate a scanner into your Paperless-ngx installation. However, this is usually done indirectly, since Paperless-ngx is primarily designed as an automated document management system. Below you will find a detailed description of how to connect your scanner and implement automated document import:

  • Integration via Watch Folders
    Modern scanners, especially those with network capabilities, can be configured to automatically store scanned documents in a designated folder, known as a “Watch Folder”. Paperless-ngx continuously monitors this folder and automatically imports new files (For this option, you need a VPN connection, which we offer starting with the “Premium” plan).
  • Integration via E-Mail Import
    Many scanners and scanning software offer the option of sending scanned documents directly by email. Paperless-ngx can be set up to monitor a special email account and automatically import all attachments.

Paperless-ngx as a SaaS solution not only offers you a modern and powerful platform for document management, but also the option of operating your system under your own domain – for example, paperless.yourcompany.com (we offer this option starting with the “Business” plan; with the ‘Starter’ plan, we offer you a subdomain in the format “yourcompany@clientapp.de”).

To use your own domain, you need to adjust a so-called A record in your DNS configuration. This configures the A record to point to the IP address of your private cloud hosting Paperless-ngx. This step ensures that all requests to your custom domain are routed directly to the correct server, making access to your document management system smooth and secure.

If you already have your own domain, you can simply make this entry via the management interface of your DNS provider. If you do not yet have a domain or prefer a domain specifically tailored to Paperless-ngx, we also offer you the option of registering a new domain directly through our service. Our team of experts is on hand to help make the entire setup process straightforward and efficient.

Using your own domain not only improves the professional appearance of your company, but also optimizes the integration into your existing IT landscape. Through the direct DNS link, you benefit from increased security, better performance and a user-friendly access structure. Overall, this flexibility helps to make your digital document management even more effective and tailored to your individual requirements.

You have questions or need an individual offer?

Our cloud experts will be happy to answer your questions about the design, implementation and operation of your applications in the cloud. We look forward to your inquiry!

Talk to our experts Arrange phone appointment

hello@cloudshift.de

+49 69 17 53 73 46 - 0

Mon. till Fri. 9 a.m. till 5 p.m.