head to head · open source
ragflow vs PaddleOCR
ragflow has 93,365 GitHub stars, 11,207 forks, 1,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PaddleOCR has 92,143 stars, 11,613 forks, 243 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. ragflow leads on adoption by 1% (93,365 vs 92,143 stars). ragflow is written in Go under Apache-2.0; PaddleOCR is written in Python under Apache-2.0. ragflow has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, PaddleOCR 13%. ragflow 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
| ragflow | PaddleOCR | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 93K | ★ 92K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 12K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ragflow if
- You weight community size — 93K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick PaddleOCR if
- You want the PaddleOCR 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 PaddleOCR fits your workflow better
About ragflow
Cloud Documentation Roadmap Discord 📕 Table of Contents 💡 What is RAGFlow? 🎮 Get Started 🔥 Latest Updates 🌟 Key Features 🔎 System Architecture 🎬 Self Hosting 🔧 Configurations 🔧 Build a Docker Image 🔨 Launch Service from Source for Development 📚 Documentation 📜 Roadmap 🏄 Community 🙌 Contributing 💡 What is RAGFlow? RAGFlow is a leading open source Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) engine that fuses cutting edge RAG with Agent capabilities to create a superior context layer for LLMs. It offers a streamlined RAG workflow adaptable to enterprises of any scale. Powered by a converged context engine…
read the full ragflow overview →
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 →
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 ragflow or PaddleOCR more popular?
ragflow has 93,365 GitHub stars and PaddleOCR has 92,143. ragflow has the larger community by that measure.
Are ragflow and PaddleOCR free?
Both are open source. ragflow is licensed under Apache-2.0 and PaddleOCR under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ragflow and PaddleOCR?
ragflow is written in Go and PaddleOCR 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, ragflow or PaddleOCR?
Choose ragflow if you want the larger community (93,365 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose PaddleOCR if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.