head to head · open source
PaddleOCR vs cli
PaddleOCR has 89,745 GitHub stars, 11,360 forks, 243 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. cli has 31,040 stars, 1,840 forks, 131 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. PaddleOCR leads on adoption by 189% (89,745 vs 31,040 stars). PaddleOCR is written in Python under Apache-2.0; cli is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. PaddleOCR has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, cli 6%. cli was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| PaddleOCR | cli | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 31K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick PaddleOCR if
- You weight community size — 90K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cli if
- You want the cli feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and cli fits your workflow better
About PaddleOCR
PaddleOCR is an Apache 2.0 Python OCR and document AI toolkit that converts PDFs and images into structured, LLM ready JSON or Markdown across more than 100 languages, and it is built for developers who need to feed documents into RAG pipelines, agents, and document parsing services.
read the full PaddleOCR overview →
About cli
gws is a command line tool for Google Workspace, written in Rust and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It provides a single interface for Drive, Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, Docs, Chat, Admin, and the wider set of Workspace APIs. Rather than shipping a fixed list of commands, it reads Google's own Discovery Service at runtime and builds its entire command surface dynamically, so new API endpoints and methods appear without a CLI release. The project lives in the Google Workspace ecosystem and is explicitly not an officially supported Google product.
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Frequently asked questions
Is PaddleOCR or cli more popular?
PaddleOCR has 89,745 GitHub stars and cli has 31,040. PaddleOCR has the larger community by that measure.
Are PaddleOCR and cli free?
Both are open source. PaddleOCR is licensed under Apache-2.0 and cli under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PaddleOCR and cli?
PaddleOCR is written in Python and cli in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, PaddleOCR or cli?
Choose PaddleOCR if you want the larger community (89,745 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose cli if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.