# LlamaParse API + MCP vs Mindee API

> Mindee API has a score of 61.5 (C) against LlamaParse API + MCP's 59.6 (C). Both do docs ocr. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 15 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamaparse-vs-mindee.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamaparse-vs-mindee.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Mindee API has a score of 61.5 (C) against LlamaParse API + MCP's 59.6 (C). Both do docs ocr. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 15 points.

- LlamaParse API + MCP: grade C, 59.6/100, rank #262 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/llamaparse.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/llamaparse.json
- Mindee API: grade C, 61.5/100, rank #227 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mindee.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mindee.json

## Which one, for what

Pick LlamaParse API + MCP for security & auth (+8), payments & pricing (+15).

Pick Mindee API for reliability (+10), maintenance & community (+5).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | LlamaParse API + MCP | Mindee API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 65 | Mindee API +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 86 | Mindee API +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 68 | LlamaParse API + MCP +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 48 | 40 | LlamaParse API + MCP +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 25 | LlamaParse API + MCP +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 85 | Mindee API +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 67 | LlamaParse API + MCP +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59.6 · C** | **61.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | LlamaParse API + MCP | Mindee API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | LlamaIndex | Mindee |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cloud.llamaindex.ai/api/v2` | `https://api-v2.mindee.net/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | 26 | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-08 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 4.3k stars, 125k npm/wk, 767k PyPI/wk | 42 stars, 33k npm/wk, 5.5k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**LlamaParse API + MCP.** Free plan with 10,000 credits a month, no card. Breaking SDK changes shipped as minor releases (files.get renamed, classify v1 removed).

**Mindee API.** Extracted data kept 12 hours by default (1 to 24 configurable), deletable on fetch, source files never stored. Every call needs a model_id created in the web platform first.

## Before you call either

### LlamaParse API + MCP

1. Connect to a product endpoint such as `https://mcp.llamaindex.ai/parse/mcp` instead of the unified one to load 3 tools plus helpers
2. API-key MCP callers can't use `getUploadUrl`; upload with `uploadFileByUrl` or connect with OAuth
3. Pin `version` on every parse so tier behaviour stays reproducible
4. Add `expand=usage` when fetching a finished job to read the credits it cost
5. Treat a 402 as out of credits, not a transient error

### Mindee API

1. Create the model in the Mindee app and store its `model_id`; the API can't create one for you
2. Enqueue returns 202; poll the job or use a webhook, and keep polling under 1,200 a minute
3. Send `Authorization: $MINDEE_API_KEY` with no Bearer prefix
4. Turn on confidence scores only when needed, since they cost 1.5 credits a page instead of 1
5. Keep schemas to 25 fields or fewer, the documented recommendation

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