# Mistral OCR API vs Unstructured API + MCP

> Mistral OCR API has a score of 59 (C) against Unstructured API + MCP's 47 (D). Both do docs parse. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 38 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-unstructured
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-unstructured.md (~1,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-unstructured.min.md (~380 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-unstructured.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

Mistral OCR API has a score of 59 (C) against Unstructured API + MCP's 47 (D). Both do docs parse. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 38 points.

- Mistral OCR API: grade C, 59/100, rank #271 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mistral-ocr.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mistral-ocr.json
- Unstructured API + MCP: grade D, 47/100, rank #390 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/unstructured.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/unstructured.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Mistral OCR API for reliability (+18), schema & documentation (+38), agent ergonomics (+25), transparency & trust (+25).

Pick Unstructured API + MCP for security & auth (+7), maintenance & community (+32).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Mistral OCR API | Unstructured API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 45 | 27 | Mistral OCR API +18 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 51 | Mistral OCR API +38 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 58 | Mistral OCR API +25 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 35 | 42 | Unstructured API + MCP +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 48 | 80 | Unstructured API + MCP +32 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 52 | Mistral OCR API +25 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59 · C** | **47 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Mistral OCR API | Unstructured API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Mistral AI | Unstructured |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.mistral.ai/v1` | `https://transform.unstructured.io/api/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 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 | `io.unstructured/transform` |
| Last release | 2026-08-31 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 769 stars | 16k stars, 385 npm/wk, 612k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4.5/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Unstructured API + MCP.** Apache-2.0 library partitions 45+ file types locally at no cost, tagged 11 times since 3 July. No status page, no published rate limits and no SLA.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Unstructured API + MCP

1. For local ingestion, `pip install "unstructured[all-docs]"` and call `partition()`; no key needed, and set `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` to stop telemetry
2. Transform returns 202 with a Location header for long parses; poll it, then pass the parse `id` as `parse_id` to Extract
3. Uploaded files expire after 24 hours; keep the original and re-upload on a 404
4. Treat 409 `parse_expired` and 410 `result_expired` as a signal to rerun the parse, not to retry
5. Check for an existing job ID before resubmitting, since there's no idempotency key

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