head to head · open source
PaddleOCR vs R2R
PaddleOCR has 89,852 GitHub stars, 11,370 forks, 243 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. R2R has 8,002 stars, 649 forks, 126 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. PaddleOCR leads on adoption by 1,023% (89,852 vs 8,002 stars). PaddleOCR is written in Python under Apache-2.0; R2R is written in Python under MIT. PaddleOCR has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, R2R 8%. 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.
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Side by side
| PaddleOCR | R2R | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 8.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2025-11-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 649 |
| 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 R2R if
- You want the R2R feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and R2R 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 R2R
R2R is an MIT licensed, Python based retrieval system from SciPhi AI that gives developers a RESTful API for agentic Retrieval Augmented Generation over their own documents, with official Python and JavaScript clients.
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Frequently asked questions
Is PaddleOCR or R2R more popular?
PaddleOCR has 89,852 GitHub stars and R2R has 8,002. PaddleOCR has the larger community by that measure.
Are PaddleOCR and R2R free?
Both are open source. PaddleOCR is licensed under Apache-2.0 and R2R under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PaddleOCR and R2R?
PaddleOCR is written in Python and R2R 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 R2R?
Choose PaddleOCR if you want the larger community (89,852 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose R2R if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.