Swift Paperless vs Less Paper
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Swift Paperless
This app allows users to manage documents directly from their iOS device. It seamlessly integrates with a self-hosted document management system, ensuring data privacy and control. Easily find, categorize, and add new documents on the go.
- Native iOS integration
- Paperless-ngx compatibility
- Document finding
- Document categorization
- Add documents from phone
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Swift Paperless is a native iOS app that interacts with the popular Paperless-ngx document management software. Paperless-ngx is self-hosted, and therefore fully privacy preserving: you control your data! With Swift Paperless, it's easy to find, categorize and also add documents from your phone!
Less Paper
This app provides a native mobile interface for paperless-ngx, allowing users to manage their documents on the go. It offers full search and filtering capabilities, document editing, and management of various metadata like tags and correspondents.
- Connect to multiple servers
- Full search and filter
- Edit documents
- Manage correspondents, types, views, and tags
- Import documents
- Supports password-protected documents
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Less Paper is a native iOS client for paperless-ngx, the self-hosted document archive. It talks directly to your own server, and to nothing else. FIND ANYTHING The complete filter set from the web interface, custom fields included: title and content, correspondent, document type, storage path, tags, dates and ASN. Save any filter as a view, then create, edit and reorder your saved views without leaving the app. EDIT WHERE YOU ARE READING Fix a title, reassign a correspondent, add tags, notes or custom field values from the document itself. Select several documents and change them together, merge them, or delete them in one go. READ IT WITH NO SERVER IN REACH Favorite a document and it is kept on the device in full — the PDF, its notes, metadata and custom fields. The Favorites tab reads those stored copies, so it works on a plane, in a basement, or anywhere your server is not. Pull to refresh and only the documents that actually changed are fetched again. GET DOCUMENTS IN Send anything on your device to paperless-ngx from the share sheet. Password-protected PDFs are unlocked on import, and the password is kept in the keychain so the next document from the same source opens without asking. BUILT FOR REAL SETUPS Connect as many servers as you like and switch between them. Sign in with a password, or with the single sign-on provider your server is configured with. Client certificates, custom HTTP headers and reverse proxies such as Authelia are all supported. A restricted account works too: the app follows your user's permissions and simply does not show what you may not do. When something does go wrong, a local error log — with anything credential-shaped redacted out of it — is there to read and share, and nothing leaves the device unless you send it. KEEP THE ARCHIVE TIDY Create, rename and delete tags, correspondents, document types and storage paths, and set ownership and permissions on any document. Restore anything you deleted from the trash, or empty it for good. Needs paperless-ngx 2.15.3 or newer. Universal: iPhone and iPad — on iPad the document opens in a column beside the list rather than covering it. Less Paper is open source. Issues and feature requests are welcome at https://github.com/plu/less-paper
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Less Paper at weekly against Swift Paperless's every 2 months. Swift Paperless's advantage is monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases) and review sentiment (97% vs 88%). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Swift Paperless sells 4 one-off in-app purchases and Less Paper sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Swift Paperless against 4.9 for Less Paper. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 68 and 18 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 97% of Swift Paperless's written reviews are positive against 88% of Less Paper's.
Swift Paperless ships an update every 2 months, Less Paper weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 18, 2026 and September 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Swift Paperless | Less Paper |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (68 ratings) | 4.9 (18 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 96.8% of reviews — better | 87.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 68 — better | 18 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 26 MB | 39 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Paul Gessinger | Johannes Plunien |
Customer experience
Swift Paperless
Less Paper
In-app purchases
Swift Paperless
- Coffee money$3.99
- Proper thank-you$8.99
- Above and beyond$17.99
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- Legendary generosity$44.99
Less Paper
- PRO User$3.99
Questions
Is Swift Paperless free?
Is Less Paper free?
Which has better reviews, Swift Paperless or Less Paper?
Do Swift Paperless or Less Paper have ads?
Which is updated more often, Swift Paperless or Less Paper?
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