Readiris PDF vs Tesseract OCR
Readiris PDF
irislink.comTesseract OCR
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Readiris PDF | Tesseract OCR |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $99/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 1 |
| Spec score · OCR software | 8.5 (#9) | 9.1 (#2) |
| Founded | 1987 | 1985 |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Supported inputs | both | image |
| Primary platform | desktop | desktop |
| Searchable PDFs | Converts documents into searchable PDF files. | Yes |
Plans
Readiris PDF
- Readiris PDF Essential — single pack$99 a month
- Readiris PDF Elite — single pack$149 a month
- Readiris PDF Essential Single Pack$99, paid once
- Readiris PDF Elite Single Pack$149, paid once
- Readiris PDF Essential Family Pack$297, paid once
- Readiris PDF Elite Family Pack$389, paid once
In their own words
Readiris PDF
Readiris PDF has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Tesseract OCR
Tesseract OCR is a free, open-source OCR engine and command-line program for extracting printed text from images. It accepts image inputs including PNG, JPEG, and TIFF, and can output plain text, hOCR, PDF, TSV, ALTO, and PAGE formats. PDF options include searchable PDFs and invisible-text-only PDFs. Tesseract 4 and later include an LSTM-based engine focused on line recognition, while Legacy OCR Engine mode retains compatibility with Tesseract 3. The project says it recognizes more than 100 languages out of the box; language data is installed separately from the engine. Developers can build applications with the C or C++ libtesseract API, and the documentation lists wrappers for other languages. The repository code uses the Apache License 2.0. Tesseract does not include a graphical user interface and points users to third-party interfaces. It uses Leptonica to open images, and improving input image quality may be needed for better recognition results. Installation instructions cover Linux, macOS, and Windows, with listed platforms also including Android and self-hosting.