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Kreuzberg

Polyglot document intelligence framework with Rust core

Kreuzberg is a polyglot document intelligence framework with a high-performance Rust core that extracts text, metadata, images, and structured data from 91+ file formats. Available for Python, Ruby, Java, Go, PHP, C#, TypeScript, plus CLI, REST API, and MCP server. Features multiple OCR backends (Tesseract, EasyOCR, PaddleOCR), table extraction with structure preservation, and native async support.

About Kreuzberg

Kreuzberg is a polyglot document intelligence framework built on a high-performance Rust core. It extracts text, metadata, images, and structured information from over 91 file formats including PDFs, Office documents, images, spreadsheets, and more. Originally a Python library, it has evolved into a multi-language framework with native bindings for Python, Ruby, Java, Go, PHP, C#, R, C, and TypeScript, plus deployment via CLI, REST API, or MCP server.

The framework offers multiple OCR backends — Tesseract, EasyOCR, and PaddleOCR — giving developers flexibility based on accuracy and speed requirements. Table extraction preserves document structure, making it particularly valuable for RAG pipelines and LLM preprocessing where layout matters. The Rust core provides native PDFium integration and SIMD optimizations for high-throughput processing.

Kreuzberg supports fully async workflows for Python developers and provides an extensible plugin system for custom format handlers. With active development including regular releases and a growing contributor community, it has become a go-to choice for teams building document-heavy AI applications that need reliable, local text extraction across diverse file types.

Pricing & Platform Specs

Pricing Summary

100% free and open source under the MIT license ($0 software cost). High-performance Rust document extraction engine with Python, Node.js, Go bindings, OCR, and MCP server support for local self-hosting.

full pricing breakdown →

Supported Platforms

Python (cross-platform)

Explore categories, tags & use cases

Categories

ETL for LLMs — preprocess any document format

Unstructured is an open-source ETL library that preprocesses and transforms documents from diverse formats into clean, structured data ready for LLM ingestion and RAG pipelines. It handles PDF, HTML, Word, PowerPoint, and many other file types through partitioning, cleaning, and chunking operations. The library offers connector-based architecture for integrating with various data sources and destinations, making it a key component in document processing workflows for AI applications.

freemiumOpen Source

Get your documents ready for gen AI

Docling is an open-source document processing toolkit by IBM Research that converts complex documents into structured formats optimized for generative AI applications. It parses PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, HTML, images, audio, and LaTeX with advanced PDF understanding including layout analysis, reading order detection, and table structure recognition. Docling exports to Markdown, HTML, JSON, and DocTags, and integrates natively with LangChain, LlamaIndex, and other AI frameworks for RAG workflows.

Open Source

Convert any file to Markdown for LLM pipelines

MarkItDown is a lightweight Python utility by Microsoft that converts files into clean Markdown optimized for LLM pipelines and text analysis. It supports PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML, images with OCR, audio with transcription, and text formats like CSV, JSON, and XML. The tool preserves document structure including headings, tables, lists, and links while keeping output token-efficient. It offers a CLI, a four-line Python API, Docker support, and a plugin architecture for extensions.

Open Source

All-in-one embeddings database with RAG, search, and agent capabilities

txtai is a self-contained AI search and RAG platform that combines vector embeddings, semantic search, LLM pipelines, and agent workflows in a single Python library. It handles embedding generation, similarity search, extractive QA, summarization, translation, and custom pipelines without external dependencies. Runs locally with over 12,400 GitHub stars and Apache 2.0 license.

Open Source

Community experience

Sources & verification

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FAQ

What is Kreuzberg?

Kreuzberg is a polyglot document intelligence framework with a high-performance Rust core that extracts text, metadata, images, and structured data from 91+ file formats. Available for Python, Ruby, Java, Go, PHP, C#, TypeScript, plus CLI, REST API, and MCP server. Features multiple OCR backends (Tesseract, EasyOCR, PaddleOCR), table extraction with structure preservation, and native async support.

Is Kreuzberg free?

Yes — Kreuzberg is open source and free to use. 100% free and open source under the MIT license ($0 software cost). High-performance Rust document extraction engine with Python, Node.js, Go bindings, OCR, and MCP server support for local self-hosting.

Is Kreuzberg open source?

Yes — Kreuzberg is open source.

Is Kreuzberg still maintained?

Yes — Kreuzberg is active. Its listing was last verified on September 6, 2026.

What are the best Kreuzberg alternatives?

The first editor-selected Kreuzberg alternatives are Unstructured, Docling, MarkItDown, and more.