Side by side

Calamari OCR vs EasyOCR

Both stand on ocr api software. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.

Calamari OCR

Free plan APILinuxSelf-hosted

Choose Calamari if you need a free, open source Python OCR engine with line recognition, model training commands, and customization through scripts. Its documented command line workflow is limited to OCR on lines, so consider that scope when choosing it for a recognition project.

Visit Calamari OCR

EasyOCR

Free plan LinuxMacSelf-hosted+1

EasyOCR offers configurable image text recognition across many languages, with multiple input and compute options. Its key limitation is that handwritten text support remains planned rather than available.

Visit EasyOCR

The facts

	Calamari OCR	EasyOCR
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Open source	Not published	Not published
Runs on	API, Linux, Self-hosted	Linux, Mac, Self-hosted, Windows
Lowest paid plan	Not published	Free or on request
Plans published	None	1
Maker	Not published	Not published
Website	github.com	github.com
On ocr api software	#7 of 29	#3 of 29

Calamari OCR: what it does well

Python scripts can integrate and customize its modular engine.
Training, resumed training, and cross fold training are documented.
Pretrained and experimental model repositories are linked.
Supports plain files, PageXML, Abbyy, and HDF5 datasets.
Published under the GNU General Public License version 3.

What to know first

Command line OCR currently supports lines only.
Requires installation through pip, source, or a Conda environment.

EasyOCR: what it does well

Supports more than 80 languages.
Accepts file paths, arrays, bytes, and URLs.
Can use a GPU or run CPU-only.
Apache-2.0 licensed with no paid plans listed.

What to know first

Handwriting recognition is not supported.
Windows users may need to install PyTorch manually first.
No searchable PDF or Word export.

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