Work · 7 tools · updated Oct 27, 2026
Pull structured data out of PDFs and scans
Unstructured leads with an evidence score of 66/100, ahead of Docling (64) and Surya (42). 5 of 7 can be used free, 3 are open source. Best for a RAG pipeline that has to swallow a company's whole file share: Unstructured.
Short answer
- Best overall: Unstructured, evidence score 66/100 of 7 tools tracked for extract data from documents.
- Best free: Unstructured (66/100) - Apache 2.0 core; the hosted platform and connectors are paid. All 5 free options.
- Best open-source: Unstructured (66/100), source at Unstructured-IO/unstructured.
Scored from public evidence (GitHub, Hacker News, release activity, free access), rebuilt 27 Oct 2026. Method.
Ranked by evidence — GitHub stars, Hacker News mentions, Wikipedia readership, release activity and how much you can use for free. Recomputed nightly. How the score works.
+ The connector list is the real product - S3, SharePoint, Confluence and Drive land as clean chunks.
− The open library's best parsing paths push you toward the paid API.
+ Reads a table as a table, and does it on your own machine with nothing sent anywhere.
− Heavy scanned documents want a GPU; CPU-only runs are slow on long PDFs.
+ Beats the old OCR engines on messy scans and non-Latin scripts, locally.
− The licence is not plain open source above a revenue line - read it before shipping.
+ Holds up on financial statements and forms where plain text extraction turns to soup.
− Per-page pricing and a cloud round trip; large archives add up fast.
+ Still the most accurate thing there is at equations, which general OCR gets wrong.
− Narrow by design - a plain business PDF is better served elsewhere.
+ Ships the boring half: approval steps, validation rules and exports to QuickBooks or SAP.
− Priced for finance teams, not for a side project.
+ Every block comes back with a page position, so an answer can cite exactly where it came from.
− API only and priced per page - no interface for someone doing this once.
Head to head: Unstructured vs Docling Unstructured vs Surya Docling vs Surya
Narrow it down
Questions
What is the best tool for extract data from documents?
Unstructured, with an evidence score of 66/100 — the highest of the 7 tools tracked for this job. The connector list is the real product - S3, SharePoint, Confluence and Drive land as clean chunks. Its weak spot: The open library's best parsing paths push you toward the paid API.
What is the best free tool for extract data from documents?
Unstructured (66/100). Apache 2.0 core; the hosted platform and connectors are paid. All 5 free options.
Is there an open-source tool for extract data from documents?
Yes — Unstructured scores 66/100 and publishes its source at Unstructured-IO/unstructured. All 3 open-source options.
How is this ranked?
By public evidence only: 45% popularity (GitHub stars, Hacker News mentions or Wikipedia readership, whichever is strongest), 25% momentum, 15% freshness of releases, 15% how much you can use for free. Recomputed nightly. Nobody can pay to move up — the sponsored box is labelled and sits outside the list. The formula.
Missing a tool? It gets added when it shows up in the release feed with real traction, not by request.