Which is cheaper, GLM-OCR or PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)?

PaddleOCR (PP-OCR). GLM-OCR is 2 credits / page and PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) is 1 credits / page.

Which is more accurate?

It depends on the document. GLM-OCR is strongest at low-cost general documents, and PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) at fast printed text, chinese and english. Run a few of your own files through both and compare the output.

Yes. Put one as model and the other in fallbacks. If the first fails, the second reads the page, and you pay only for the one that answered.

GLM-OCR vs PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)

PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) is cheaper per page; PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) is faster; only GLM-OCR supports tables, math.

Get API key All models

	GLM-OCR`zai/glm-ocr`	PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)`paddle/paddleocr`
Type	Open source	Open source
Price	2 credits / page	1 credits / page
Per 1,000 pages	$2.00	$1.00
Typical speed	1.3 s / page	0.7 s / page
Best for	Low-cost general documents	Fast printed text, Chinese and English
Inputs	PDF, images	PDF, images
Languages	100+ languages	80+ languages
Max pages per request	500	500
Tables	✓ Yes	No
Handwriting	No	No
Math	✓ Yes	No
Bounding boxes	✓ Yes	✓ Yes
Confidence	✓ Yes	✓ Yes
Forms	No	No
Multilingual	✓ Yes	✓ Yes
On OCRRouter	Available	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

GLM-OCR

Small open-source OCR model from Z.ai with layout regions. MIT licensed.

GLM-OCR details

PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)

Baidu's classic open-source text detection and recognition pipeline. Light enough to run on CPU.

PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) details

Use one, fall back to the other

Request body

{
  "model": "zai/glm-ocr",
  "fallbacks": ["paddle/paddleocr"],
  "file_url": "https://example.com/document.pdf"
}

Questions

More comparisons

Mistral OCR vs GLM-OCR Mistral OCR vs PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)Gemini Flash vs GLM-OCR Gemini Flash vs PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)GPT vs GLM-OCR GPT vs PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)Claude vs GLM-OCR Claude vs PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)

GLM-OCR alternatives PaddleOCR (PP-OCR) alternatives