PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) vs Unstructured
PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) is cheaper per page; PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) is faster; only PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) supports confidence; only Unstructured supports tables.
PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)paddle/paddleocr | Unstructuredunstructured/unstructured | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Open source | OCR API |
| Price | 1 credit / page | 20 credits / page |
| Per 1,000 pages | $1.00 | $20.00 |
| Typical speed | 0.7 s / page | 3.0 s / page |
| Best for | Fast printed text, Chinese and English | Mixed file types into RAG |
| Inputs | PDF, images | PDF, images, DOCX |
| Languages | 80+ languages | Multilingual |
| Max pages per request | 500 | 1,000 |
| Tables | No | ✓ Yes |
| Handwriting | No | No |
| Math | No | No |
| Bounding boxes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Confidence | ✓ Yes | No |
| Forms | No | No |
| Multilingual | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| On OCRRouter | Coming soon | Coming soon |
Prices are what you pay on OCRRouter. Speed is the provider's typical figure, not a benchmark we ran.
What each one is
PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)
Baidu's classic open-source text detection and recognition pipeline. Light enough to run on CPU.
PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) detailsUnstructured
Document ETL for RAG. Partitions many file types into typed elements; open-source library too.
Unstructured detailsUse one, fall back to the other
Request body
{
"model": "paddle/paddleocr",
"fallbacks": ["unstructured/unstructured"],
"file_url": "https://example.com/document.pdf"
}