head to head · open source
PaddleOCR vs PixelRAG
PaddleOCR has 92,256 GitHub stars, 11,618 forks, 243 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. PixelRAG has 10,851 stars, 981 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. PaddleOCR leads on adoption by 750% (92,256 vs 10,851 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%. PixelRAG 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 | PixelRAG | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 92K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 981 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick PaddleOCR if
- You weight community size — 92K 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
Global Leading OCR Toolkit & Document AI Engine English 简体中文 繁體中文 日本語 한국어 Français Русский Español العربية PaddleOCR converts PDF documents and images into structured, LLM ready data (JSON/Markdown) with industry leading accuracy. With 70k+ Stars and trusted by top tier projects like Dify, RAGFlow, and Cherry Studio, PaddleOCR is the bedrock for building intelligent RAG and Agentic applications. 🚀 Key Features 📄 Intelligent Document Parsing (LLM Ready) Transforming messy visuals into structured data for the LLM era. SOTA Document VLM : Featuring PaddleOCR VL 1.6 (0.9B) , the industry's leading lightweight…
read the full PaddleOCR overview →
About PixelRAG
Official codebase for PIXELRAG: Web Screenshots Beat Text for Retrieval Augmented Generation Yichuan Wang , Zhifei Li , Zirui Wang , Paul Teiletche , Lesheng Jin Matei Zaharia †, Joseph E. Gonzalez †, Sewon Min † Equal contribution † Equal advising Work done at Berkeley SkyLab & BAIR & Berkeley NLP Search any document by how it looks , not just the text it contains. What it is · Give Claude eyes · How it works · Pipelines The two core operations — render a page to screenshots, search a visual index: Live, hosted endpoint — serves a pre built index of 8.28M Wikipedia pages . No setup, no API…
read the full PixelRAG overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is PaddleOCR or PixelRAG more popular?
PaddleOCR has 92,256 GitHub stars and PixelRAG has 10,851. 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 (92,256 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.