12 Best Free and Open Source Linux Document Management Systems

Document Management is an information technology that has taken over from legacy systems of manual or server based file sharing, the electronic filing cabinet, to control policies and procedures. It is one of the functions provided by Enterprise Content Management.

A document management system enables individuals and businesses to manage documents, making it easy to locate a previous document version. This is important from a record control perspective, and to ensure that compliance standards are met within a user-friendly environment.

The main benefit offered by a document management system is that it gives individuals and businesses the tools to store and index many different types of documents and electronic files. Information and knowledge within the organisation can be accessed as appropriate, leading to an increase in productivity. Any kind of binary data can be stored in the document system. Other uses of this type of system include document workflow, records management, image management, disaster recovery, backup, and access control.

Linux offers an impressive range of open source document management systems of varying complexities, to help manage paper files electronically, enabling users to find data without any fuss or bother. At the same time these systems ensure that only authorized users have access to the relevant documents, can add meta-data to documents for searching, and provide version control.

To provide an insight into the quality of software available for Linux, we have compiled a list of 12 powerful document management systems. Hopefully, there will be something of interest here for anyone who needs to control records and documents. We give our highest recommendation to HumHub, Alfresco, and OpenKM.

Click the links in the table below to learn more about each document management system.

This article has been revamped in line with our recent announcement.

Read our complete collection of recommended free and open source software. Our curated compilation covers all categories of software. Spotted a useful open source Linux program not covered on our site? Please let us know by completing this form. The software collection forms part of our series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. There are hundreds of in-depth reviews, open source alternatives to proprietary software from large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. There are also fun things to try, hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more.