NAPS2 vs scanservjs

NAPS2 is free, open-source software for scanning documents and saving them as PDF, TIFF, JPEG, or PNG. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and supports WIA and TWAIN drivers with flatbed or automatic document feeder scanners, including duplex scanning. Users can reorder, interleave, rotate, crop, deskew, and adjust scanned pages’ brightness and contrast. OCR makes scans searchable, supports more than 100 languages, and can add text recognition to imported PDFs. NAPS2 can share scanners across a local network using ESCL, including with compatible Android and iPhone apps, but it must remain running on the server for sharing to work. It can send email through Gmail and Outlook, with the email address and secure sending token kept on the user’s computer and sent only to the relevant provider. Optional developer tools include a command-line interface for automation and a .NET scanning library. The free plan has no ads or restrictions, though OCR results cannot be saved directly to a text file.

scanservjs lets people access and share SANE-compatible scanners over a network through a web browser. Its controls cover source selection, cropping, resolution, filters and configurable defaults. Scans can be saved as TIF, JPG, PNG, PDF or TXT, with Tesseract OCR for text output. It handles multipage jobs and collation for double-sided scans; batches can run through a document feeder or pause for manual page changes.

The software is free and open source. It requires SANE and a Linux host or virtual machine, with installation documentation for Debian, Arch and Docker. Docker images are listed for amd64, arm64 and armv7. An API explorer and OpenAPI documentation are available at /api-docs. Scanned files are saved in a flat directory for download, and Docker deployments need a mapped volume to retain files when a container is recreated. Filesystem scripts and custom actions can support other workflows, while custom naming, folder structures and cloud or NAS storage are left to users.