OCR Arena
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 10 AI benchmarks by recommenders
Free place to upload a document and compare OCR models side by side. Critics question its ELO rankings, which lack error bars.
Free place to upload a document and compare OCR models side by side. Critics question its ELO rankings, which lack error bars.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 73%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Side-by-side comparison of OCR models
“it's pretty cool to see how different models interpret photos, too”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: OCR Arena – A playground for OCR models” “cool UI and lets anyone upload a doc. but lacks”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: OCR Arena – A playground for OCR models” Strong output, including German
“I'm very impressed by the models, to the point I was wondering if they were really converting the pdf or just reading the content.”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: OCR Arena – A playground for OCR models” “from my first tests it does fine with german”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: OCR Arena – A playground for OCR models” Useful and easy to try
“cool UI and lets anyone upload a doc. but lacks”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: OCR Arena – A playground for OCR models” “this is incredibly useful!”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: OCR Arena – A playground for OCR models” Best leaderboard for OCR models
“The best leader board I have used is ocrarena.ai.”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “GLM-OCR: Accurate × Fast × Comprehensive” “it's pretty cool to see how different models interpret photos, too”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: OCR Arena – A playground for OCR models”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
ELO rankings lack error bars
“It also doesn't provide error bars on the ELO, so models that only have tens of battles are being listed alongside models that have thousands of battles”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “GLM-OCR: Accurate × Fast × Comprehensive” “ELO scores for OCR don't really make much sense”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “GLM-OCR: Accurate × Fast × Comprehensive”
Other AI benchmarks people recommend
The four most recommended other AI benchmarks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artificial Analysis | 62 | 46 | 57% | 11 | — | — |
| LMArena | 39 | 40 | 49% | 11 | — | — |
| ARC-AGI | 22 | 24 | 48% | 8 | — | — |
| OCR ArenaThis page | 11 | 4 | 73% | 4 | — | Approved |
| Bullshit Benchmark | 9 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“doesn't seem to have kept up with new models for a bit”
“like you said they can be iffy but there's a clear enough gap”
“The best leader board I have used is ocrarena.ai.”
“ELO scores for OCR don't really make much sense”
“It also doesn't provide error bars on the ELO, so models that only have tens of battles are being listed alongside models that have thousands of battles”
“it's pretty cool to see how different models interpret photos, too”
“cool UI and lets anyone upload a doc. but lacks”
“from my first tests it does fine with german”
“I'm very impressed by the models, to the point I was wondering if they were really converting the pdf or just reading the content.”
“my first upload is still spinning on one of the models about 5 minutes in”
“UX on mobile isn’t great.”
“the frontend seems to get into a bad state after around 50k characters, which prevents the user from selecting a winner”
“this is incredibly useful!”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.