Head to head · Document extraction · October 2026 research run

Clairic vs Docling

Clairic scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Docling's 64.3 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Docling leads on reliability, payments & pricing and 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

  • Schema & documentation, 85 against 77
  • Security & auth, 75 against 53
  • Transparency & trust, 81 against 65

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Free to start without a card
  • No incidents deducted, where Docling loses 8 points for them

Watch for

Preview only. Cloudflare calls the endpoint an early checkpoint and expects to replace it under the unversioned ID @cf/cloudflare/clairic

Docling B

Best for Self-hosted PDF and Office conversion to Markdown or JSON for RAG and agents that can't send documents out.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 85 against 58
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
  • Maintenance & community, 89 against 57

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Open source

Watch for

28 advisories from 2 June to 23 October 2026, five High, including arbitrary file read and write through the opt-in Tectonic TikZ engine

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 Docling +32

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.

Docling 89

v2.148.0 on 5 November 2026, the day before this check (30). 13 releases from 9 October to 5 November (20). Open issues and pull requests are numerous, an AI triage workflow and PR reminders run, and six maintainers are named; replies not sampled (17 of 25). docling-mcp publishes to the official MCP registry on release under io.github.docling-project, per its workflow and server.json; the registry entry itself was not read (12 of 15). CI, a dependency-update workflow and uv.lock (10). 30+20+17+12+10 = 89.

Reliability Docling +27

Clairic 58

Scored as a hosted model on Workers AI, as Clef is. www.cloudflarestatus.com is a Statuspage with Workers AI as its own component (20). Clairic was released on 19 October 2026, so its public record is 13 days long on 1 November. The incidents feed read on 20 October covered 5 to 19 October, and the feed read on 1 November holds 50 incidents from 16 to 31 October. Since release, Workers AI is named only in "Issues with AI Security for Apps" on 27 October, intermittent failures in unsafe topic detection with impact none, which doesn't touch Clairic. The 23 October network incident, labelled major, describes some traffic between Ashburn and Atlanta and some customers in North America, so it reads as partial, as cloudflare-workers-ai and cloudflare-r2 read it. The 15 October Workers AI incident came four days before release. A record this short reads as 15 of 30 in this run (pplx-decider, openai-decisions-api), so the 20 October 8, which isn't a checklist value, is brought into line (15). The model page puts Clairic under Text Generation, whose default limit is 300 requests a minute, though the limits page doesn't name it (13 of 15). The errors page gives 429 two internal codes, 3036 for a spent free allocation and 3040 for capacity, per the Workers AI listing's check. No Retry-After was found for a 3040. A call has no side effects, so a retry is safe (10 of 15). No SLA for Workers AI found (0). Clairic is still a preview on its model page, re-read on 1 November, and in its catalogue and changelog entries (0 of 10). 20 + 15 + 13 + 10 + 0 + 0 = 58.

Docling 85

Local-software lines, graded on the library with docling-serve and docling-mcp. Installs from PyPI (docling 2.148.0, per the PyPI release feed) for Python 3.10 and later on macOS, Linux and Windows (20). Public CI workflows for checks, tests and heavy examples; the pass state of the default branch was not read (20 of 25). About 719 open issues and 223 open pull requests on the repository page against 13 releases in four weeks, many of them fixes; replies not sampled (15 of 25). Semantic-release changelog with Feature and Fix sections and Breaking sections where they apply (15). Version 2.x since 2024 (15). 20+20+15+15+15 = 85.

Security & auth Clairic +22

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.

Docling 53

Framework reading. No credentials for local use; docling-serve has one optional shared key, off by default (20 of 30). Remote services are off unless explicitly enabled, local file fetch is guarded by flags, and MCP tools carry read-only and destructive annotations; manipulation tools can delete items and save files (12 of 20). Converted documents are untrusted text and no prompt-injection guidance was found (3 of 15). Logging only, no audit trail (3 of 15). A disclosure policy with private reporting, 28 advisories published in public with fixed versions, under the LF AI & Data Foundation; no bug bounty (15 of 20). 20+12+3+3+15 = 53. The advisories themselves are the deduction.

Payments & pricing Docling +20

Clairic 40

No x402, MPP or L402 for Clairic. Machine Payments on POST /ai/run lists four other models, read on 20 October 2026 (0). $0.10 per million input tokens (9,091 neurons) on the pricing page, last updated 19 October 2026, and on the model page, with no output charge (20). Workers AI includes 10,000 neurons a day on the Free plan, about 1.1 million Clairic input tokens, and Cloudflare's Free plan needs no card per the 30 September check (20). The hosted route needs a person to sign up in a browser, and there are no weights to run yourself yet (0). Price re-read on the model page on 1 November. 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.

Docling 60

Self-hosted rule. Free MIT software with nothing to buy, so 20 + 20 + 20, and no payment protocol (0). 60.

Transparency & trust Clairic +16

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.

Docling 65

MIT, an OSI licence, with model licences noted as separate (30). Runs locally, remote services off by default and air-gapped use documented; no privacy statement is needed for local use, but model downloads from Hugging Face on first run are only partly described (22 of 30). Breaking changes are marked in the changelog, with no deprecation policy or dated notices (10 of 20). No telemetry found in the source; nothing to opt out of (15 of 20). 30+22+10+15 = 77.

Schema & documentation Clairic +8

Clairic 85

The model page publishes input and output JSON Schemas, also as raw files, with a type enum of nine field kinds, enums for list items, scale and forecast interval, and bounds on decimals, horizon and null_threshold. min, max, step and every answer's value carry no type, and Cloudflare's OpenAPI has only the generic /ai/run/{model_name} path (21 of 25, one below Clef for the untyped bounds and values). Workers AI's llms.txt lists Clairic, and the model page has a Markdown copy (10). The extraction models page says when to use an extraction model, a decision model or a generative model, with invoice examples, and has a limitations section. The changelog entry and the post add when not to rely on it, for multi-step arithmetic, aggregation across table rows and long-horizon forecasts (18 of 20). Field specs require type, list fields require items, and field names have a pattern. The state is free-form by design (13 of 15). Examples in JavaScript, Python and curl with a full response, and the Workers AI error table, with nothing specific to Clairic such as an invalid field spec (13 of 15). A dated changelog entry on 19 October 2026, but the model ID carries no version and Cloudflare calls the endpoint an early checkpoint it expects to improve (10 of 15). 21 + 10 + 18 + 13 + 13 + 10 = 85.

Docling 77

No OpenAPI file is published; docling-serve is a FastAPI app that serves its schema when run, and docling-mcp's tools carry typed inputs with Field descriptions from Pydantic (20 of 25). No llms.txt on the docs site; Markdown docs and AGENTS.md in the repository (5 of 10). MCP tool docstrings say what each tool returns and which other tool supplies its key, with little on when not to use one (14 of 20). Pydantic types with descriptions, few enums (12 of 15). Many runnable examples in docs/examples, with errors raised as Python exceptions that name the fix, such as OperationNotAllowed and unknown document keys listing valid ones (11 of 15). Changelog per release (15). 20+5+14+12+11+15 = 77.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runClairicDoclingEdge
Reliability16%205885Docling +27
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28577Clairic +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.27877Clairic +1
Security & auth14%17.57553Clairic +22
Payments & pricing10%12.54060Docling +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85789Docling +32
Transparency & trust7%8.88165Clairic +16
Negative events≤150-8
TotalB 68.3/100B 64.3/100

Facts side by side

FactClairicDocling
KindModel APISDK + MCP
VendorCloudflareDocling Project (LF AI & Data Foundation, started at IBM Research Zurich)
Hosted endpointhttps://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/run/@cf/cloudflare/clairicno (local only)
TransportsHTTPstdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTP
AuthAPI keyNone
PricingFreemiumFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary 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 namedMIT
Tools exposednone25
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
MCP registrynot listedio.github.docling-project/docling-mcp
Last release2026-10-192026-11-05
Terms last updated2025-09-12no document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot read yet
Popularitynone70k stars, 947k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.3/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

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.

Docling

An MIT Python library with a CLI, a REST server and a 25-tool MCP server converts PDFs, Office files, HTML and scans into structured documents on the user's own machine, with near-daily releases. Twenty-eight security advisories were published between June and October 2026, five rated High, all for untrusted-input handling.

Before you call either

Clairic

  1. Send model as clairic in the body as well as in the URL. The input schema requires model and fields
  2. Set reference_date, or add a line giving today's date to the state, for any field that depends on the current date
  3. Treat a null value as not found, and read p_null, confidence or the 80% interval before acting. Typed output is well formed, not necessarily correct
  4. Extract the inputs and do multi-step sums and table totals in code. Cloudflare says long arithmetic chains aren't reliable yet
  5. Embed images as data URLs or base64 objects, at most four, 4 MiB each and 8 MiB in all. Remote image URLs are refused
  6. Read the internal code on a 429. 3036 means the day's 10,000 free neurons are spent, 3040 means capacity, so retry later

Docling

  1. Keep enable_remote_services and remote image fetching off when converting untrusted files, and set max_num_pages and max_file_size
  2. Upgrade to v2.148.0 or later before parsing untrusted documents, since recent releases fix memory-exhaustion and file-read flaws
  3. Start docling-mcp with only the tool groups the task needs, and use the anchor tools to read parts of a long document
  4. Treat converted text as untrusted input, never as instructions
  5. Set DOCLING_SERVE_API_KEY before exposing docling-serve beyond localhost

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Clairic or Docling?

Clairic scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Docling's 64.3 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Docling leads on reliability, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

Can an agent call Clairic and Docling without installing anything?

Clairic has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/run/@cf/cloudflare/clairic. Docling runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed.

Are Clairic and Docling open source?

No open-source release is listed for Clairic. Docling is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Clairic or Docling

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