head to head · open source
PaddleOCR vs PixelRAG
PaddleOCR has 89,852 GitHub stars, 11,370 forks, 243 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. PixelRAG has 10,029 stars, 863 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. PaddleOCR leads on adoption by 796% (89,852 vs 10,029 stars). PaddleOCR is written in Python under Apache-2.0; PixelRAG is written in Python under Apache-2.0. PaddleOCR has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, PixelRAG 9%. PaddleOCR 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| PaddleOCR | PixelRAG | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 10K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 863 |
| 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 PixelRAG if
- You want the PixelRAG feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and PixelRAG 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 PixelRAG
PixelRAG is the official open source codebase for the paper "PIXELRAG: Web Screenshots Beat Text for Retrieval Augmented Generation," an Apache 2.0 Python project from Berkeley SkyLab, BAIR and Berkeley NLP that renders web pages, PDFs and images to screenshot tiles and retrieves over those images instead of parsed text, built for RAG engineers, agent developers and researchers who need tables, charts, diagrams and layout to survive retrieval.
read the full PixelRAG overview →
More in AI & Machine Learning
Related comparisons
More AI Development Platforms projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the AI Development Platforms field.
Frequently asked questions
Is PaddleOCR or PixelRAG more popular?
PaddleOCR has 89,852 GitHub stars and PixelRAG has 10,029. PaddleOCR has the larger community by that measure.
Are PaddleOCR and PixelRAG free?
Both are open source. PaddleOCR is licensed under Apache-2.0 and PixelRAG under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PaddleOCR and PixelRAG?
PaddleOCR is written in Python and PixelRAG in Python. 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 PixelRAG?
Choose PaddleOCR if you want the larger community (89,852 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose PixelRAG if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.