head to head · open source
PaddleOCR vs qwen-code
PaddleOCR has 89,852 GitHub stars, 11,370 forks, 243 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. qwen-code has 27,997 stars, 3,076 forks, 1,422 open issues and last shipped today. PaddleOCR leads on adoption by 221% (89,852 vs 27,997 stars). PaddleOCR is written in Python under Apache-2.0; qwen-code is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. PaddleOCR has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, qwen-code 11%. qwen-code 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 | qwen-code | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 28K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| 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 qwen-code if
- You want the qwen-code feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and qwen-code 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 qwen-code
Qwen Code is an open source AI coding agent that runs in the terminal, with additional interfaces for editors, desktop, browser, and chat. It is written in TypeScript and released under the Apache 2.0 license, and it lives in the AI and machine learning ecosystem as a development platform for agentic coding. The project is maintained by QwenLM and published on npm as @qwen code/qwen code , with a documentation site hosted at qwenlm.github.io. It ships as a command line tool named qwen that opens an interactive session inside a project directory.
read the full qwen-code overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is PaddleOCR or qwen-code more popular?
PaddleOCR has 89,852 GitHub stars and qwen-code has 27,997. PaddleOCR has the larger community by that measure.
Are PaddleOCR and qwen-code free?
Both are open source. PaddleOCR is licensed under Apache-2.0 and qwen-code under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PaddleOCR and qwen-code?
PaddleOCR is written in Python and qwen-code in TypeScript. 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 qwen-code?
Choose PaddleOCR if you want the larger community (89,852 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose qwen-code if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.