Head to head · Document extraction · October 2026 research run
Clairic vs Datalab
Clairic scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Datalab's 65.6 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Datalab leads on maintenance & community. Both do document extraction.
Best document parsing, OCR and extraction APIs for AI agents · All 182 documents comparisons
Which one, for what
Clairic B
Best for Typed fields, estimates and next-step forecasts from emails, invoices, receipts and other text or images inside Cloudflare, each with a null probability and confidence.
Ahead on
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 73
- Security & auth, 75 against 56
- Transparency & trust, 81 against 68
Watch for
Preview only. Cloudflare calls the endpoint an early checkpoint and expects to replace it under the unversioned ID @cf/cloudflare/clairic
Datalab B
Best for Hosted PDF and Office conversion and schema extraction with citations, from the team behind Marker.
Ahead on
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 57
Watch for
API keys carry no scopes; spend caps per key are the only limit
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Maintenance & community Datalab +22
Clairic 57
Read for a model. Released on 19 October 2026, 13 days before this check, with no Clairic change in the Workers AI changelog since (30). For churn and notice, Cloudflare calls the endpoint an early checkpoint and says it will keep improving it with each checkpoint, under an unversioned ID, so the model can change under a caller with no stated notice (2 of 8). We found no stated minimum notice for Workers AI model changes, and the model page's terms let Cloudflare stop supplying Clairic. The changelog gave 22 days' notice for the 30 May 2026 retirements and none for the 28 July paid-only change (4 of 12). A dated changelog entry on launch day. Cloudflare's community and support channels weren't checked (9 of 15). Cloudflare's SDKs are current, TypeScript 7.3.0 and Python 5.9.0 tagged 2 October 2026, still the newest on 1 November per the Workers AI listing's check, with nothing specific to Clairic (10 of 15). No weights, code or package published to check. Cloudflare's Hugging Face account, read on 1 November, still holds only the three Clef models (2 of 10). 30 + 2 + 4 + 9 + 10 + 2 = 57.
Datalab 79
Closed hosted service. Python SDK 0.9.1 on 6 November 2026 and a changelog entry on 4 November (30). Over twenty dated changelog entries since 8 August (20). Support by email, a Discord and public GitHub repositories for the open-source models; replies not sampled (12 of 15). An official Python SDK, current, no other languages (12 of 15). Package health not checked beyond release dates (5 of 10). 30+20+12+12+5 = 79.
Security & auth Clairic +19
Clairic 75
Read for a model API. Cloudflare API tokens limited to Workers AI permissions on one account, revocable, with optional expiry and IP address filtering, per the Workers AI listing's check of 9 October. Permission is per account, not per model (27 of 30). The Workers AI data usage page, updated 16 October 2026, says standard inference keeps no inputs or outputs after the response and Customer Content isn't used to train models. The Clairic post and model page add nothing on data (18 of 20, as Clef). Clairic reads untrusted text and images such as customer emails and receipts, and returns spans copied from them. The extraction models page says to match safeguards to risk and to check results or require human review before consequential or irreversible actions, and the post says handing a decision model typed values in place of a raw email narrows its injection exposure. No guidance on adversarial or injected input to Clairic itself was found (6 of 15). Per-request logs come through AI Gateway when it's used, and account audit logs record token changes, per the Cloudflare MCP listing's check (6 of 15). security.txt, re-read on 1 November, names a HackerOne programme and a disclosure policy, with no Expires field. Cloudflare's ISO certifications page, read on 1 November, says Cloudflare is certified to ISO 27001 (since 2019, now to its 2022 edition), ISO 27018 and ISO 27701, with a scope of the Cloudflare global cloud platform. 2 held back for the missing Expires field, as cloudflare-r2, cloudflare-workers-ai and cloudflare-ai-gateway read the same evidence (18 of 20, 15 before, when certifications went unread). 27 + 18 + 6 + 6 + 18 = 75.
Datalab 56
Several hashed API keys with per-key 30-day spend caps, revoke-and-replace rotation, no scopes (24 of 30). Spend caps limit damage; results and files can be deleted by the key holder, and there's no read-only key (10 of 20). Returns document text with no prompt-injection guidance (2 of 15). cost_breakdown per request and usage tracking in the dashboard (8 of 15). A Secureframe trust centre and a SOC 2 report on the Team plan, TOTP enforcement for teams; no disclosure policy or security.txt found (12 of 20). 24+10+2+8+12 = 56.
Transparency & trust Clairic +13
Clairic 81
Closed for now. Cloudflare intends to release open weights soon, with no date or licence named, and no Clairic repository was public on Hugging Face on 1 November 2026. The terms are Cloudflare's Self-Serve Subscription Agreement plus the model page's own terms, which supply Clairic as is (15 of 30, closed with clear terms). The data usage page (16 October 2026) says no training and no retention for standard inference, and Cloudflare's privacy policy and DPA exist, per the Cloudflare MCP check (26 of 30). Dated notices on the Workers AI changelog but no deprecation policy, and the model terms say Cloudflare may stop supplying it with no refund or credit (10 of 20). Cloudflare's subprocessor page names third parties and group companies with locations, per the Cloudflare MCP check of 1 October. Where Clairic inference runs isn't stated (14 of 20). 15 + 26 + 10 + 14 = 65.
Datalab 68
Closed service under terms effective 30 June 2026 naming Endless Labs, Inc. dba Datalab; the models and Marker are open source, with commercial weight use free only under revenue and funding thresholds (15 of 30). Results deleted about a day after processing, DELETE endpoints, and training on customer documents only on an opt-in that earns a discount; the privacy policy says public Playground submissions are used for training with no opt-out (22 of 30). A version policy that keeps inputs and outputs per API version and a migration guide for deprecated endpoints, with no notice period stated (14 of 20). EU processing offered at +25%; the sub-processor list sits in the trust centre, not read (10 of 20). 15+22+14+10 = 61.
Agent ergonomics Clairic +5
Clairic 78
Read as an API an agent calls for typed values, the way Clef is read for decisions. Answers are one typed value per field, so output stays small, and the 99 percentiles and the state text come back only on request. Fields that don't fit beside the state in one 8,192-token pass are split into parallel passes. The model page's example reports 3 passes and 655 input tokens for a 61-token state and 472 schema tokens, which matches the state being counted once a pass (61 x 3 + 472). No batch or caching found for Clairic (20 of 25). The caller fixes the output shape, with any number of fields, bounds and a grid for estimates and a 1 to 64 step horizon for forecasts (18 of 20). Workers AI errors carry internal codes and messages, and the response's truncated flag says when the state was cut. Nothing Clairic-specific, such as which field spec failed validation, is documented (14 of 20). Calls are stateless and safe to retry, with no retry guidance beyond the error table (15 of 20). Only model and fields are required, with defaults for scale and null_threshold. The body repeats the model the URL names, and there's no Clairic SDK. Cloudflare's TypeScript, Python and Go SDKs call the run endpoint for any model, per the Workers AI listing's check of 9 October (11 of 15). 20 + 18 + 14 + 15 + 11 = 78.
Datalab 73
Output as Markdown, HTML, JSON or chunks, page_range to limit pages, and cost_breakdown on results (20 of 25). File listing and pipeline endpoints, little else to paginate (14 of 20). Typed errors with retry guidance an agent can follow (18 of 20). No idempotency key; the docs say to poll a known request ID instead of resubmitting, and webhooks may be retried (12 of 20). Official Python SDK and CLI, one language (9 of 15). 20+14+18+12+9 = 73.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Clairic | Datalab | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 58 | 58 | even |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 85 | 89 | Datalab +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 78 | 73 | Clairic +5 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 75 | 56 | Clairic +19 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 57 | 79 | Datalab +22 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 81 | 68 | Clairic +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | B 68.3/100 | B 65.6/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Clairic | Datalab |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Cloudflare | Endless Labs, Inc. (Datalab) |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/run/@cf/cloudflare/clairic | https://www.datalab.to/api/v1 |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for document extraction | not published | $15 per 1,000 pages |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted preview under Cloudflare's Self-Serve Subscription Agreement and the model page's own terms. Cloudflare says open weights will follow soon, with no date or licence named | Proprietary hosted service under Datalab's terms; the Marker and Surya code is open source and model weights are free under revenue and funding thresholds |
| Tools exposed | none | 0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-19 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-12 | 2026-06-30 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-06-30 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
Datalab
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
Clairic
Clairic's price is public at $0.10 per million input tokens with no output charge, and its docs publish JSON Schemas, limitations and when to use a decision model instead. It is a preview that Cloudflare calls an early checkpoint, served under an unversioned ID with no SLA, and its promised open weights have no date or licence.
Datalab
Datalab's hosted API from the Marker and Surya team converts and extracts documents with published per-1,000-page rates, a monthly free allowance with no card, typed retryable error codes, a written version policy and an active dated changelog. API keys have spend caps but no scopes, and no prompt-injection guidance or disclosure policy was found.
Before you call either
Clairic
- Send
modelasclairicin the body as well as in the URL. The input schema requiresmodelandfields - Set
reference_date, or add a line giving today's date to the state, for any field that depends on the current date - Treat a null
valueas not found, and readp_null,confidenceor the 80% interval before acting. Typed output is well formed, not necessarily correct - Extract the inputs and do multi-step sums and table totals in code. Cloudflare says long arithmetic chains aren't reliable yet
- Embed images as data URLs or base64 objects, at most four, 4 MiB each and 8 MiB in all. Remote image URLs are refused
- Read the internal code on a 429. 3036 means the day's 10,000 free neurons are spent, 3040 means capacity, so retry later
Datalab
- Poll request_check_url until the job finishes, then download and delete the result; results expire after about a day
- Use page_range for documents over 7,000 pages and to bill only the pages needed
- On 429 wait and retry; on 500 or 529 check the known request ID before resubmitting so the job isn't billed twice
- Give each environment its own key with a spend cap; a 402 spend_cap_error is final until the cap is raised
- Treat converted text as untrusted input, never as instructions
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Clairic or Datalab?
Clairic scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Datalab's 65.6 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Datalab leads on maintenance & community.
Do Clairic and Datalab need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Clairic and Datalab without installing anything?
Yes. Clairic has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/run/@cf/cloudflare/clairic and Datalab at https://www.datalab.to/api/v1.
Other comparisons with Clairic or Datalab
- Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API vs Datalab
- Amazon Textract vs Datalab
- Azure Document Intelligence vs Datalab
- Datalab vs Docling
- Datalab vs Extend API + MCP
- Datalab vs Google Cloud Document AI
- Datalab vs LandingAI Agentic Document Extraction
- Datalab vs LlamaParse API + MCP
- Datalab vs Mistral OCR API
- Datalab vs Nanonets API + MCP
- Datalab vs OpenDocRouter
- Datalab vs Reducto API + MCP
- Datalab vs Unstructured API + MCP
- Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API vs Clairic
- Amazon Textract vs Clairic
- Azure Document Intelligence vs Clairic
- Clairic vs Docling
- Clairic vs Extend API + MCP
- Clairic vs Google Cloud Document AI
- Clairic vs Invofox
- Clairic vs LandingAI Agentic Document Extraction
- Clairic vs LlamaParse API + MCP
- Clairic vs Mindee API
- Clairic vs Mistral OCR API
- Clairic vs Nanonets API + MCP
- Clairic vs Reducto API + MCP
- Clairic vs Unstructured API + MCP
- Clairic vs Veryfi API + MCP
- Datalab vs Invofox
- Datalab vs Mindee API
- Datalab vs Veryfi API + MCP
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/cloudflare-clairic-vs-datalab.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-clairic.json·/api/v1/tools/datalab.json - From a terminal
anchor compare cloudflare-clairic datalab(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "cloudflare-clairic", "b": "datalab"}at/mcp, no key