githuganswered from live GitHub & Hugging Face data
Best open OCR model for documents in 2026 — which model, the repo to run it, and license?
In 2026, the standout open-source OCR models for processing documents are GLM-OCR and DeepSeek-OCR-2. Their performance is bolstered by active maintenance and favorable licenses, making them suitable choices for various document recognition tasks.
Recommended OCR Models
| Model Name | Downloads | License | Gated Access | Last Updated | Hugging Face URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GLM-OCR | 3,226,765 | MIT | No | 2026-05-19 | View Model |
| DeepSeek-OCR-2 | 2,687,484 | Apache-2.0 | No | 2026-02-03 | View Model |
| DeepSeek-OCR | 2,295,893 | MIT | No | 2025-11-04 | View Model |
| Chandra-OCR-2 | 1,985,780 | OpenRail | No | 2026-03-18 | View Model |
| PP-OCRv5 Server | 661,037 | Apache-2.0 | No | 2025-07-22 | View Model |
Summary of Top Choices:
- GLM-OCR: Highly versatile, supporting multiple languages and equipped with robust transformer architecture. License: MIT.
- DeepSeek-OCR-2: Multilingual capabilities and great for incorporating advanced features like layout understanding. License: Apache-2.0.
Both models are actively maintained and updated, with GLM-OCR reflecting the latest updates in May 2026, positioning it as a leading choice for document OCR tasks.
Conclusion
Choosing between these models will depend on your specific needs for document recognition, language support, and licensing flexibility. Opt for GLM-OCR for cutting-edge features and DeepSeek-OCR-2 for its multimedia capabilities.
🤗 huggingface.co/pyannote/speaker-diarization-3.1🤗 huggingface.co/argmaxinc/whisperkit-coreml🤗 huggingface.co/openai/whisper-large-v3-turbo🤗 huggingface.co/openai/whisper-base🤗 huggingface.co/jonatasgrosman/wav2vec2-large-xlsr-53-japanese🤗 huggingface.co/zai-org/GLM-OCR🤗 huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-OCR-2🤗 huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-OCR🤗 huggingface.co/datalab-to/chandra-ocr-2🤗 huggingface.co/PaddlePaddle/PP-OCRv5_server_det