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LlamaParse vs PaddleOCR (PP-OCR)

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

LlamaParsellamaindex/llamaparsePaddleOCR (PP-OCR)paddle/paddleocr
TypeOCR APIOpen source
Price5 credits / page1 credit / page
Per 1,000 pages$5.00$1.00
Typical speed3.0 s / page0.7 s / page
Best forRAG ingestionFast printed text, Chinese and English
InputsPDF, images, DOCXPDF, images
Languages80+ languages80+ languages
Max pages per request1,000500
Tables✓ YesNo
HandwritingNoNo
Math✓ YesNo
Bounding boxes✓ Yes✓ Yes
ConfidenceNo✓ Yes
FormsNoNo
Multilingual✓ Yes✓ Yes
On OCRRouterComing soonComing soon

Prices are what you pay on OCRRouter. Speed is the provider's typical figure, not a benchmark we ran.

What each one is

LlamaParse

Document parser built for RAG pipelines, with several quality tiers.

LlamaParse 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": "llamaindex/llamaparse",
  "fallbacks": ["paddle/paddleocr"],
  "file_url": "https://example.com/document.pdf"
}

Questions

More comparisons

LlamaParse alternativesPaddleOCR (PP-OCR) alternatives