As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates d.velop documents 2.5/5 and DocuWare 2.5/5 in Document Management (DMS). Weighted by what each judge cares about, 3 of the 6 judges pick d.velop documents and 3 pick DocuWare. d.velop documents scores higher on 3 of 6 criteria (Versioning, permissions & audit trail, Audit-proof archiving & retention and Search, retrieval & exit). DocuWare scores higher on 2 of 6 criteria (Capture, OCR & indexing and European sovereignty). Provenance — d.velop documents: EU-Made; DocuWare: EU origin, foreign-owned. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
d.velop documents leads on versioning and permissions, 3.8 vs 2.8 (5 judges lean d.velop documents, 0 DocuWare, 1 tie), and on audit-proof archiving, 4.7 vs 3.7 (5, 0, 1). DocuWare leads capture and indexing, 7.3 vs 7.0 (2 leans, 0, 4 ties). Document workflows is level at 6.8 (1 lean each, 4 ties); search and portability splits 2-2 with 2 ties; sovereignty reads 4.2 vs 4.3, 2 leans to DocuWare and 3 ties; pricing transparency, weighted only for d.velop documents because published prices exist, sits at 1.8 vs 1.5 with 5 ties. Judge totals split: DocuWare ahead with the tax auditor, 5.1 vs 4.8, and the IT integrator, 5.7 vs 5.6; d.velop documents ahead with the records analyst, the data protection officer and the skeptic. Attributes: d.velop documents — jurisdiction DE, data residency unknown; DocuWare — data residency EU only, ownership unknown. No overall winner: the lean differs by judge and criterion.
Choose d.velop documents if
You need tight control over document versions and access rights — versioning and permissions leans d.velop documents 5 judges to 0, mean 3.8 vs 2.8.
Your archive must stand up in a German tax audit — audit-proof archiving leans d.velop documents 5 judges to 0, mean 4.7 vs 3.7.
You require a vendor with a German legal-entity jurisdiction — the captured attribute for d.velop documents lists jurisdiction DE.
Your buying panel mirrors the records analyst or the data protection officer — their weighted totals favor d.velop documents at 4.8 vs 4.3 and 4.5 vs 4.2.
Published prices matter to your shortlisting — pricing transparency carries a 1-to-0 lean to d.velop documents with 5 ties, and its verdicts are the only ones weighted for pricing because published prices exist.
Choose DocuWare if
High-volume document intake is your priority — capture and indexing leans DocuWare, mean 7.3 vs 7.0, with 2 judges leaning DocuWare, 0 d.velop documents and 4 ties.
You must keep document data within the EU — the captured attribute for DocuWare lists data residency EU only.
Your priorities match the tax auditor's rubric — that judge's weighted total reads 5.1 vs 4.8 for DocuWare.
Your IT integrator leads the evaluation — that judge's weighted total reads 5.7 vs 5.6 for DocuWare.
Sovereignty is a scored criterion in your evaluation — it leans DocuWare 2 judges to 1 with 3 ties, mean 4.3 vs 4.2.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The GoBD Auditor
Has sat through tax audits on the company side and knows that "GoBD-konform" on a homepage proves nothing. Wants the auditor's Testat with its scope and date, archived documents that cannot change, retention per document type, and a Z3 export the tax office can read.
d.velop documents
DocuWare
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Capture, OCR & indexing
d.velop documents
The digital post intake captures, classifies, distributes and archives documents from all sources, with scanner, photo, email and Peppol intake listed, and invoice fields such as number, date, creditor and line items read out automatically and matched against order data; ZUGFeRD and XRechnung invoices are processed and archived as structured formats, with an AI-assisted review step that is skipped for invoices with purchase-order reference. I found no public information on duplicate detection or on where the AI processing runs, which keeps this below the top marks.
DocuWare
Intelligent document processing is documented in depth: trainable custom extraction models fed with a few sample documents, no-code training, AI classification, a confidence score per mapped field, verification of extracted bank details, and handwriting recognition — plus receipt and validation of e-invoices towards PEPPOL. I found no public information on the intake channels and their limits, on duplicate detection for incoming documents, or on where the generative-AI processing of document content actually runs; with GenAI in the capture path, that last point belongs on the table before an audit does.
Versioning, permissions & audit trail
d.velop documents
Versioning files a corresponding version for every change to a document, and access to the archive is controlled through individual permission structures that also bind the AI-generated answers. I found no public information on an audit log of who read or changed a document, on restoring earlier versions, on check-out, or on single sign-on and directory sync — and the access trail is the first thing an auditor asks to see.
DocuWare
Version management with concurrent editing and locking while a document is being edited is documented, as is a workflow history showing which user made which decision, and the archiving guidance expects a history that is viewable in the system and exportable in a common file format. We found no public information on roles or folder permissions, on restoring earlier versions, on single sign-on or directory sync, or on how the audit trail is protected against change.
Audit-proof archiving & retention
d.velop documents
GoBD conformity and revisionssichere archiving are claimed, immutability is addressed through versioning and retention policies that block deletion and modification, and support for the Verfahrensdokumentation goes far: webinars, a digital file plan mapping its structure one to one, and sample documentation templates. But no auditor's report such as IDW PS 880 is named with its scope and date, retention configurable per document type is not shown, and I found no public information on a Z1–Z3 export for the tax office.
DocuWare
"Revisionssichere Archivierung" is claimed for invoice processing, and the German archiving pages go further than most vendors: retention periods by document type (ten, eight, six and two years), the shortened eight-year period for booking documents since 2025, e-invoices to be kept in digital original form, workflow tools for protection or destruction of documents at defined times, and access to structured data in evaluable formats such as CSV, XML or DATEV. But we found no public information on how immutability of archived documents is achieved, on an auditor's report with its scope and date, or on a Z1–Z3 tax-audit export — the three things a Finanzamt asks for first.
Document workflows & integrations
d.velop documents
Approval steps are customizable with substitution on absence, the SAP invoice workflow books automatically into purchasing and financial accounting with a three-way match and approvals via a Fiori app, and connectors to named systems — SAP (certified partner), SAGE, APplus, Oracle, Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Microsoft 365 — plus a REST API and a digital signature module are documented. I found no public information on graphical workflow modelling without code or on webhooks and events.
DocuWare
The Workflow Manager is documented as graphical, code-free modelling with configurable triggers, substitution rules, deadline escalation, automatic task lists and a controller who can intervene, and invoice workflows hand over to accounting — a DATEV integration is shown through a reference customer, exported CSV data feeds any accounting or ERP system, and an API plus a 500-plus integrations claim are published. We found no public information on API documentation with webhooks or events, on the scope of the named ERP connectors, or on an e-signature integration — the captured pages explain signature types as background rather than documenting a feature.
Search, retrieval & exit
d.velop documents
Search templates and favorite documents exist in the app, enterprise search runs in real time across company applications with access rights respected, documents can be marked for offline use and sync back, and importing existing documents from the file system is documented. I found no public information on bulk export of documents with their metadata and versions in a documented structure, on exporting the audit trail, or on any post-termination retrieval provision.
DocuWare
Full-text and index-data search, access from home office and mobile, and a genuinely documented export of index data — filter-selected, one-click or scheduled, with table-field content, into CSV for any accounting or ERP system, included in every cloud licence — are public. We found no public information on bulk export of the documents themselves together with versions and audit trail, on saved searches, or on the post-termination retrieval window; the exit is the part I ask a vendor to prove, not promise.
European sovereignty
d.velop documents
The contracting entity is d.velop AG in Gescher, commercial register HRB 4903 at Coesfeld, an on-premises and hybrid edition exists, and the homepage states the company is fully under European ownership and free of US jurisdiction risks such as the CLOUD Act. The captured pages give no information on where cloud documents and metadata are stored, on the subprocessor chain for hosting and AI processing, or on published certifications — the privacy policy names only website-related services such as Hygraph in Berlin and Hotjar in Malta.
DocuWare
DocuWare GmbH is the contracting entity under German law with exclusive venue in Munich, personal data is processed by default in Germany and other European countries, dedicated data centres in the EU and the USA are offered, and a locally installed edition exists alongside the cloud. We found no public information on the subprocessor chain for hosting, AI processing and support beyond marketing tools, nor on where the generative AI that reads document content runs; the compliance page links out to certifications without asserting any on the page itself, and ownership is not stated on the captured pages.
Pricing transparency
d.velop documents
The only public prices are academy trainings — "d.velop documents individualisieren (Cloud)" and "d.velop invoices anwenden" at 749,00 € each, and the sales training at 290,00 € — while the software itself, its editions, storage, modules and on-premises licensing carry no public prices; the offer is directed exclusively at business customers and procurement runs through an individual live demo.
DocuWare
We found no public price figures on the captured pages: cloud licensing is described without amounts, on-premises licensing is tied to PROFESSIONAL or ENTERPRISE Server plus add-on licences and a price list that the terms reference but that we did not see published, and the entry point is a free demo followed by a 30-day trial. What is public are contract mechanics — prices ex works excluding VAT and packaging, 14-day payment terms where deliveries are credit-insured, otherwise prepayment or cash on delivery, and add-on modules purchasable only with a current maintenance and support subscription.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
d.velop documents
DocuWare
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates both 2.5/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 3 of the 6 judges pick d.velop documents and 3 pick DocuWare. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is d.velop documents or DocuWare European?
d.velop documents is European (EU-Made). DocuWare is European (EU origin, foreign-owned). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.