Assembly Line

DocuSign eSignature vs Signaturepdf

DocuSign eSignature and Signaturepdf are both e-signature software. DocuSign eSignature is a commercial product from Docusign, Inc. Signaturepdf is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 832 GitHub stars.

Which to pick

Pick DocuSign eSignature when
Your counterparties expect DocuSign, or you need enterprise integrations and compliance features.
Pick Signaturepdf when
An organisation wants simple self-hosted PDF signing and page tools, for example on YunoHost.

Side by side

What it does

Electronic signature service for sending documents, collecting legally binding signatures and tracking status, with many integrations.

A web app for signing PDFs alone or with others, and for merging, reordering, compressing and editing PDF metadata.

Watch out

It is the priciest mainstream option, and envelope limits catch out heavy users.

Signatures are visual, not qualified electronic signatures with legal certificates.

Ready for

Production-ready

Usable

Runs as

Cloud service and mobile app

Self-hosted server

Built with

Not published

PHP and JavaScript

Source code

Closed source, sold by Docusign, Inc.

Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)

What the license allows

Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.

Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.

How widely known

No Wikipedia article of its own

832 GitHub stars

How established

Not known

Established: started 5 years ago, latest release v1.11.0.

Other comparisons

More e-signature apps

Every e-signature product and project, ranked

Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.