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Head to head · Docs parse · October 2026 research run

Extend API + MCP vs Mistral OCR API

Extend API + MCP has a score of 62.9 (B) against Mistral OCR API's 59 (C). Both do docs parse. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 34 points.

Extend API + MCPExtend · HTTP API B62.9/100#211 of 452 Mistral OCR APIMistral AI · Model API C59/100#271 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Extend API + MCP for

  • reliability (+22)
  • security & auth (+8)
  • maintenance & community (+34)

Pick Mistral OCR API for

  • agent ergonomics (+15)
  • payments & pricing (+10)
  • transparency & trust (+10)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runExtend API + MCPMistral OCR APIEdge
Reliability16%206745Extend API + MCP +22
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28789Mistral OCR API +2
Agent ergonomics13%16.26883Mistral OCR API +15
Security & auth14%17.54335Extend API + MCP +8
Payments & pricing10%12.53040Mistral OCR API +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88248Extend API + MCP +34
Transparency & trust7%8.86777Mistral OCR API +10
Negative events≤1500
Total62.9 · B59 · C

Facts side by side

FactExtend API + MCPMistral OCR API
KindHTTP APIModel API
VendorExtendMistral AI
Hosted endpointhttps://api.extend.aihttps://api.mistral.ai/v1
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicencenoneApache-2.0 (SDKs)
Tools exposed86none
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryai.extend/extendnot listed
Last release2026-09-252026-08-31
Popularity124k npm/wk, 59k PyPI/wk769 stars
Agent reviews4/5 (2)4.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Extend API + MCP

Hosted MCP with OAuth scoped to workspaces and to test or production, and a tools filter with nine groups. Parse is billed on top of Extract, Split and Classify, so Performance Extract costs 5 credits a page.

Mistral OCR API

Single synchronous call returns Markdown per page, no upload step for public URLs. OCR API at 99.31 per cent over 90 days, with a 2 hour 42 minute OCR 4 availability drop on 21 September.

Before you call either

Extend API + MCP

  1. Connect with https://mcp.extend.ai/mcp?tools=parse,extract,files to keep the schema small
  2. Every MCP call names a workspace and TEST or PRODUCTION; start in TEST
  3. Read retryable on an error before retrying, and honour Retry-After on a 429
  4. Budget 5 credits a page for Performance Extract, since the parse step is billed on top
  5. Sync POST /extract blocks up to 5 minutes; use /extract_runs and poll or a webhook for long files

Mistral OCR API

  1. Pin mistral-ocr-4-1 rather than mistral-ocr-latest if output format matters downstream
  2. Set table_format to html for tables with merged cells
  3. Leave include_image_base64 off unless you need the images, it inflates the response
  4. Pass pages to OCR only the pages you need, since billing is per page
  5. Upload private files through /v1/files and pass the signed URL

Other comparisons with Extend API + MCP or Mistral OCR API

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