Python
Unstructured
Turn any file into LLM-ready data
by Unstructured-IO · Apache-2.0
Document AI & OCRETL for documentsApache-2.0Self-hostedPythonIntermediate
From the README
Install
docker pull downloads.unstructured.io/unstructured-io/unstructured:latest
- Install the Python SDK to support all document types with pip install "unstructured[all-docs]"
- For plain text files, HTML, XML, JSON and Emails that do not require any extra dependencies, you can run pip install unstructured
- To process other doc types, you can install the extras required for those documents, such as pip install "unstructured[docx,pptx]"
- Install the following system dependencies if they are not already available on your system.
Excerpts from the project README on GitHub. Copyright and licensing remain with the respective authors.
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🚀 Latest release ·
What is Unstructured?
Unstructured extracts and normalizes content from PDFs, HTML, Word, emails and more into clean elements ready for embedding and RAG ingestion.
Why people choose Unstructured
- One API for dozens of file formats
- Chunking strategies designed for RAG
- Widely adopted in the LLM data stack
Unstructured at a glance
| Category | Document AI & OCR |
| Type | ETL for documents |
| License | Apache-2.0 |
| Runs locally | Self-hosted |
| Built with | Python |
| Skill level | Intermediate |
| Best for | teams ingesting many file types into one pipeline |
Latest releases
Open-source alternatives to Unstructured
Other open-source document ai & ocr tools worth comparing:
MarkItDownTurn any office document into clean Markdown
MarkerConvert PDFs to clean Markdown fast
DoclingIBM-grade document understandingSuryaModern OCR with layout detection
PaddleOCRIndustrial OCR with tiny models
FirecrawlTurn websites into LLM-ready Markdown
Crawl4AIOpen-source LLM-friendly crawler
olmOCRTurn PDFs into clean training-grade text
MinerUPDF to Markdown with formulas and tables
TesseractThe classic OCR engineUnstructured head-to-head
Unstructured vs MarkItDownUnstructured vs MarkerUnstructured vs DoclingUnstructured vs SuryaUnstructured vs PaddleOCRUnstructured vs FirecrawlUnstructured vs Crawl4AIUnstructured vs olmOCRUnstructured vs MinerUUnstructured vs TesseractUnstructured vs PDF to MD ConverterUnstructured vs RemoveHandwritingUnstructured vs Transmonkey
FAQ
Is Unstructured free?
Unstructured is free and open-source (Apache-2.0 license), so you can use, self-host and modify it at no cost.
Can I run Unstructured locally?
Yes. Unstructured is designed to run on your own machine or server, keeping your data private.
What is the best alternative to Unstructured?
Popular open-source alternatives include MarkItDown, Marker, Docling. See the comparisons above to choose.
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