PaddleOCR-VL vs OCR.space
OCR.space is cheaper per page; PaddleOCR-VL is faster; only PaddleOCR-VL supports math, confidence.
PaddleOCR-VLpaddle/paddleocr-vl | OCR.spaceocrspace/ocr-space | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Open source | OCR API |
| Price | 2 credits / page | 1 credit / page |
| Per 1,000 pages | $2.00 | $1.00 |
| Typical speed | 1.3 s / page | 1.5 s / page |
| Best for | CJK documents | Cheap simple OCR |
| Inputs | PDF, images | PDF, images |
| Languages | 109 languages | 20+ languages |
| Max pages per request | 500 | 100 |
| Tables | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Handwriting | No | No |
| Math | ✓ Yes | No |
| Bounding boxes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Confidence | ✓ Yes | No |
| 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
PaddleOCR-VL
Open-source document model from Baidu. Excellent on Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
PaddleOCR-VL detailsOCR.space
Low-cost OCR API with a large free tier. Returns text, word boxes and searchable PDFs.
OCR.space detailsUse one, fall back to the other
Request body
{
"model": "paddle/paddleocr-vl",
"fallbacks": ["ocrspace/ocr-space"],
"file_url": "https://example.com/document.pdf"
}