As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates ecoDMS 2.5/5 and PaperOffice 3.5/5 in Document Management (DMS). Weighted by what each judge cares about, 0 of the 6 judges pick ecoDMS and 6 pick PaperOffice. ecoDMS scores higher on 1 of 7 criteria (Pricing transparency). PaperOffice scores higher on 6 of 7 criteria (Search, retrieval & exit, Versioning, permissions & audit trail, Audit-proof archiving & retention, plus 3 more). Provenance — ecoDMS: EU-Made. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
PaperOffice is ahead on six of seven criteria in this table; ecoDMS leads on one. The gaps are widest in search and portability (7.2 versus 4.0) and capture and indexing (8.3 versus 6.0), with six judges leaning PaperOffice in each. Versioning and permissions (6.7 versus 4.0), audit-proof archiving (6.5 versus 4.0) and document workflows (6.0 versus 4.8) lean PaperOffice six to zero as well, and sovereignty runs 5.8 versus 5.0 with five judges leaning PaperOffice and one tie. ecoDMS's lead is pricing transparency, 5.0 versus 3.3, six judges to zero: published gross prices for two core products on a time-unlimited flat licence, against PaperOffice's public per-page OCR rates of $0.01 to $0.03 and named plans appearing without prices. The weighted totals shown run 4.5 to 4.7 for ecoDMS against 6.0 to 6.9 for PaperOffice — the benches split on price, so no overall winner is declared here.
Choose ecoDMS if
You need published gross prices for two core products before purchase — six judges lean ecoDMS on pricing transparency, 5.0 to 3.3
You prefer a time-unlimited flat licence with updates for 24 or 48 months included over public pricing quoted as per-page OCR rates of $0.01 to $0.03
Your procurement requires a contracting entity under exclusively German law — the sovereignty attributes list legal entity jurisdiction as DE
You must self-host on Windows, Linux, macOS or NAS rather than use vendor-hosted processing
Choose PaperOffice if
You receive XRechnung and ZUGFeRD invoices and need them validated against EN 16931 — capture and indexing leans PaperOffice six judges to zero, 8.3 to 6.0
Your intake must span scanner SFTP, watched folders, a mailbox, upload and a REST API with stated limits
You need OCR covering more than 120 languages with confidence values and a review list
Your team needs permission-scoped semantic and full-text search with a documented way in and out — search and portability leans PaperOffice six to zero, 7.2 to 4.0
Your data-residency policy requires EU-only processing: the attributes list data residency as EU-only, and the pages state processing in the vendor's own EU data center
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.
ecoDMS
PaperOffice
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Capture, OCR & indexing
ecoDMS
Capture is well documented: scanners over TWAIN, WIA and SANE or a Scan-to-Folder network path, a mobile scanning app with AI cropping, email as an input channel, and automatic OCR that full-text-indexes every document; the system recognises documents by layout or keyword and reads invoice data by OCR, with classification manual or semi-automatic via templates in the inbox. We found no public information on XRechnung or ZUGFeRD e-invoices being read as structured data, a validation step for extracted fields, or duplicate detection.
PaperOffice
Intake is documented channel by channel with its limits — scanner over SFTP, watched folders, IMAP mailbox from 5-minute intervals, upload and REST API — alongside AI-OCR in more than 120 languages, classification that proposes the retention rule, confidence-based review lists and duplicate detection. XRechnung and ZUGFeRD are validated against EN 16931, and processing is stated to run in the vendor's own EU data center. We found no public information naming the model provider, and classification trainability per document type appears only as a prompt coach that suggests fields.
Versioning, permissions & audit trail
ecoDMS
A traceable change history, versioned and immutable storage of archived documents, and clearly controllable access are stated, and clear access rights for teams are named for the mail archive. We found no public information on restoring earlier versions, rights per role or folder, an audit log covering reads and exports, or single sign-on.
PaperOffice
Every revision is kept as a version with its own SHA-256 checksum, workspaces carry read, write and admin rights for users and groups, and the audit trail records every access and change with person, time and old and new values — with, per the vendor's own statement, no function to change or delete entries in the app or via API. We found no public information on single sign-on, directory sync, check-in and check-out, or the retention period of the log itself.
Audit-proof archiving & retention
ecoDMS
"Revisionssicher nach GoBD" is claimed, scanned documents are stated to be stored immutable, versioned and in legally secure PDF/A, and fulfilling retention obligations is part of the pitch. From the auditor's chair that is not yet proof: we found no public information on an auditor's report with its scope and date, retention periods configurable per document type, a sample Verfahrensdokumentation, or a Z1–Z3 export the tax office can read.
PaperOffice
The mechanics are genuinely documented: WORM until the retention term ends, retention per document type with legal basis and a start date chosen at sealing, expiry logged as an event, legal hold, GDPR deletion reconciled against retention obligations, and a read-only workspace user with period-filtered export of metadata and originals for the auditor. What I miss is the independent evidence: we found no public information on an auditor's report of the IDW PS 880 kind with its scope and date, or on Z1–Z3 tax-audit export, and the vendor itself leaves the final GoBD assessment to the tax advisor.
Document workflows & integrations
ecoDMS
The WORKZ add-on provides automated document workflows with acknowledgement and approval steps and a digital document stamp, a JSON-REST API for connecting ERP, accounting and custom applications is documented, and live connections to Lexware, DATEV Unternehmen Online, SelectLine and Sage 100 are shown in webinars. We found no public information on graphical workflow modelling with substitutes and escalation, webhooks, or e-signature integration.
PaperOffice
Approval with optional human review, follow-ups and deadlines carried on the document, redaction as a workflow stage, and a REST API with signed webhook events, an MCP server and connectors for SFTP, S3, WebDAV and IMAP mailboxes are documented, with a public quickstart naming endpoints and limits. We found no public information on ERP or DATEV handover, graphical workflow modelling with substitutes and escalation, or process reporting, and e-signature appears only as a feature name.
Search, retrieval & exit
ecoDMS
Intelligent full-text search over automatically OCR-indexed documents is documented, with access via web browser, desktop and the mobile app's web client, and reliable retrieval of receipts even at short-notice audits is promised. We found no public information on metadata filters and saved searches, bulk export of documents with their metadata and versions, or a documented exit path in stated formats.
PaperOffice
Semantic, full-text and OCR search with saved searches, filters and voice search on mobile, results scoped to the user's permissions, bulk export of metadata as Excel, CSV, JSON or PDF with optional originals and OCR text, and a named import path through the Data Importer give a buyer a documented way in and out. We found no public information on searching across versions and attachments, on versions being included in the export, or on a post-termination retrieval window and data deletion.
European sovereignty
ecoDMS
The contracting entity is ecoDMS GmbH in Aachen, registered at the local court and under German law, a data processing agreement is linked, and the software is installed on the customer's own computer or NAS rather than a vendor cloud. Payment processing via PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A. in Luxembourg is the one subprocessor documented; we found no public information on the wider subprocessor chain, where AI processing runs, or certifications.
PaperOffice
The contracting party worldwide is a Spanish company, storage and processing including the AI layer are stated to run in the vendor's own EU data center with no US cloud, and ISO 27001 certification is published. The data center itself is described only as the vendor's own EU facility, sales and support run from San Jose, and we found no public information on a subprocessor list, on ownership, or on a published data processing agreement.
Pricing transparency
ecoDMS
Public prices appear as "ab 89,00 EUR inkl. 19% MwSt." for ecoDMS and "nur 69,00 EUR inkl. 19% MwSt." for ecoMAILZ, together with the flat one-time licence model, updates included for 24 or 48 months, the entire inbound scanning and OCR processing at no extra charge, and support as an optional add-on. We found no public information on prices for the WORKZ add-on, the ecoDMS ONE package or additional concurrent connections, so the full cost of a configuration cannot be computed from public pages alone.
PaperOffice
The only public figures we found are the per-page OCR prices stated as "basic · Text $0.01 per page", "premium · Grid + codes $0.02 per page" and "ultra · Complete $0.03 per page", plus API billing in credits on every plan. Plan names such as Basic, Premium, Ultra and Corporate and the workspace tiers Standard, Business and Compliance appear without prices, and we found no public information on per-user or per-edition costs, billing period, storage limits, contract term or onboarding fees.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
ecoDMS
PaperOffice
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 PaperOffice higher: 3.5/5 against 2.5/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 0 of the 6 judges pick ecoDMS and 6 pick PaperOffice. 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 ecoDMS or PaperOffice European?
ecoDMS is European (EU-Made). PaperOffice’s provenance is not proven by its pages as captured. Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Where do ecoDMS and PaperOffice store customer data?
Per the vendors’ own pages as captured — ecoDMS: its pages as captured do not say. PaperOffice: Default not stated; pages mention the EU.