Compare deployment options and use cases for Nutrient document solutions

When functioning independently, Document Engine acts as a backend document processing and management service, enabling the programmatic manipulation of documents without the need for a user interface.

It supports two operational modes:

• Without storage — Stateless headless processing, where inputs are provided per request, and results are processed without persistent storage.

• With storage — Includes PostgreSQL for metadata and S3 for binary assets, enabling integration with frontend clients and broader access via licensed APIs.

These modes align with distinct licensing configurations:

• Server components — For backend APIs, available in both modes.

• Client components — For frontend UI/API integrations, only available in “with storage” mode. Document Engine is flexible for integration in custom apps or workflows, regardless of the platform, and is delivered as a Linux container.

Use cases

Consider a use case where a customer only requires backend document processing capabilities, such as OCR, format conversion, or bulk redaction. There’s either no user interface, or it doesn’t require exposing document editing functions that would require the Web SDK.

Examples

• A medical clinic that needs to convert every patient scan into a PDF format.

• A government agency that requires the redaction of personal information from documents before archiving.

• A web store that requires adding additional information to all invoices coming from a payment system integration.

These use cases don’t necessitate complex interactive document operations in the user interface, or they just consist of straightforward, automated backend document processing.

Deployment

1. Self-hosted: For organizations with in-house infrastructure design and operations capabilities.

• We provide a recommended setup example (as if we were setting this up ourselves) for clients to follow in their infrastructure.

• Private, self-hosted infrastructure. Clients have full control over the infrastructure to meet compliance requirements.

• Highly scalable. Suitable for processing documents in batches.

• For all business sizes.

2. Managed (Nutrient): For those seeking infrastructure simplicity; Nutrient handles deploying and operating in the cloud.

• Managed Document Engine eliminates the need for clients to set up and manage their own infrastructure.

• Service offered to manage infrastructure using various public cloud providers.

• Clients maintain ownership of their cloud instance license in public clouds, ensuring exclusive use.

3. Web SDK + Document Engine: For organizations seeking the flexibility of switching between client-side and server-side support.

• Hosted on our infrastructure or their infrastructure.

• Client-side user interface.

• Significantly reduced client-side processing load. When integrated with Nutrient Web SDK, it enables client applications to offload heavier operations that come from PDF viewing and editing.

• Run Document Engine from the backend of the client’s application to automate processes, or as a backend for the Web SDK.

• Real-time collaboration on documents for Web and mobile SDKs.

4. Document Web Services (DWS) API: For software builders in need of headless document processing with minimal operational overhead.

Capability comparison

Component comparison