A2J Author vs Docassemble

A2J Author lets court, legal services, and law school staff create web-based guided interviews to help self-represented litigants complete court documents. Authors use a graphical flowchart map to arrange dialogue and branching questions. Document tools include a template automator for basic documents and the A2J Document Assembly Tool for creating templates. CALI offers free hosting on A2J.org for interviews and templates intended to assist litigants; organizations can also self-host the A2J Viewer, A2J DAT, and interviews. The system is browser-based, and the project history says version 7.0 opened the source under the GNU Affero General Public License. Authors can create Section 508 and WCAG2-compliant interviews when using the latest Viewer and following the accessibility checklist. The free plan is for legal aid organizations, government entities, courts, and other nonprofits using the software non-commercially, with a registered and authenticated account. HotDocs templates cannot be published on A2J.org. When self-hosting, generating documents from HotDocs templates requires LawHelp Interactive or a HotDocs server.

Docassemble is a free, open-source platform for guided interviews and document assembly. An interview can produce downloadable or emailed PDF, RTF or DOCX files, submit applications, interact with APIs or provide information. Authors build interviews with YAML, Markdown and Python logic, and can make questions depend on what information is still needed. Templates can use DOCX or PDF files, with a Word add-in for DOCX workflows. Other listed capabilities include touchscreen signatures, chat, screen sharing, remote screen control, AI, SMS, email, fax, OCR, multilingual interviews and multiuser applications. Developers can extend interviews with Python and connect third-party applications through the API. Deployment options include Docker, Docker Compose, Helm and installation without Docker; the maker recommends Docker. The software has no usage fees, but an internet-hosted server typically costs $10–$40 per month or more. Interview answers are encrypted in the SQL database unless multi_user is True; uploaded and assembled documents are not encrypted.