Comment by phenomen

I tested many open-source and hosted OCR models and Datalab Chandra was the most accurate. It can parse complex layouts, tables, handwriting, and formulas at a fraction of the cost of Claude/Gemini.

Local: https://github.com/datalab-to/chandra Hosted: https://www.datalab.to

Another decent option is GLM OCR. It's slightly less accurate but faster and cheaper.

Local: https://github.com/zai-org/GLM-OCR Hosted: https://docs.z.ai/guides/vlm/glm-ocr

Other models such as PaddleOCR, dots.ocr and DeepSeek OCR performed significantly worse.