NAPS2 vs XSane

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.

XSane is a free, open-source graphical frontend for scanners. It supports ICC/ICM color profiles and image enhancements for gamma handling and histograms. Standalone tools can scan and save, scan and view, copy, fax and email. Scan-and-save supports JPEG, PNG, PNM, PS, raw and TIFF formats. XSane also works as a GIMP plug-in. The SANE frontend listing marks it temporarily offline, while download guidance points users to distributor or volunteer binary packages and recommends vendor packages for Linux. Git snapshots may contain fixes or features absent from stable releases, but the project says those builds are untested. The SANE homepage lists sane-frontends 1.0.14 as released on 2005-09-18. Listed platforms include Linux, Unix, OS/2 and Windows, including a Windows 9x/NT/2000 network scanning version. Users can report bugs or missing features through the project issues system.