Both send a link and report on it. They are built for different documents, and one of them you can host yourself.
An editor, not a viewer
Papermark shares files you already have. Quixli is where the document gets written, so a proposal, a scope and a report are made in the same place that then tracks them.
Sections rather than pages
A page break is wherever the export put it. Quixli attributes time to the headings you wrote, and reports what was skipped and whether the reader came back a day later.
The document can change after it is sent
Correct a price or a date and the link the recipient already has shows the corrected document — no re-upload, no second version in circulation.
Elements a file cannot have
Pricing the client selects from, package choosers, in-scope and out-of-scope columns, and diagrams with editors behind them.
Putting a large diagram in a document usually means drawing it somewhere else, exporting a PNG, uploading it, and doing the whole loop again when one arrow moves. In Quixli the diagram is an element with an editor behind it, and the same is true of the things you would otherwise screenshot.
Mermaid diagrams
flowcharts, sequences and architecture, written as text and rendered live — edit a line, not the image
Excalidraw drawings
sketched inside the document, and still editable a month later
Charts
built from a data grid with a live preview, not pasted from a spreadsheet
Project timelines
a real Gantt view rather than a picture of one
Figma embeds
the frame itself, which updates when the file does
Google Docs and Sheets
embedded and readable in place
PDFs and file attachments
read inside the document instead of downloaded
YouTube, Vimeo and Loom
the walkthrough plays where it is relevant
Code blocks and formulas
syntax highlighting and maths, for the documents that need them
Markdown, in and out
paste it straight into the editor and it becomes real headings, tables and code blocks — or import a .md file, or export the document back out as one
| Quixli | Papermark | |
|---|---|---|
| How the document is made | Written in the editor | Uploaded as a file |
| Fixing a line after sending | Edit the page; the same link updates | Upload a new version |
| Reading detail | Attention per section | Page-by-page, per viewer |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes, open source |
| Data rooms and folder permissions | No | Yes |
| NDA gate | No | Yes |
| Custom domain | No | Yes |
| Interactive pricing the client selects | Yes | Whatever is in the file |
| Diagrams | Mermaid and Excalidraw editors | Whatever is in the file |
| Free plan | Yes, no card | Yes |
No prices are compared here on purpose: both change, and a stale figure would be worse than none. Check Papermark’s own pricing page alongside ours.
Choose Papermark if you are running a data room, if an NDA has to sit in front of the document, or if the whole thing needs to be self-hosted. Quixli does none of those.
Choose Quixli if the document has not been written yet, and you want the tool that writes it to be the one that tells you which section they stopped on.
No. Papermark is the open-source option here; Quixli is hosted only.
No. Documents can be organised into collections and shared, but there are no folder-level permissions or NDA gates.
The document itself — written in the tool, changeable after sending, and carrying interactive pricing and scope elements that a PDF cannot.
Or start from a ready-made template.