Skip to contentFree OCR in browser vs OCR.space API credits and upload limits.
OCR.space provides a popular free OCR API with rate limits and optional API keys. Images upload to their endpoint unless self-hosted.
Tentaco PDF OCR keeps standard scans in-tab for privacy-sensitive documents.
| Feature | Tentaco | OCR.space |
|---|---|---|
| API key | Not needed | Optional/required at scale |
| Rate limit | Browser memory | Requests/hour cap |
| PDF multi-page | Yes | Via API tiers |
| Privacy | Local modes | Upload to OCR.space |
| Price | Free | Free tier + paid API |
Use Tentaco for private PDF scans. Use OCR.space API when building automated server pipelines.
Run local OCRComparable on clean scans; cloud APIs may win on noisy photos.
