How Does Owl Eyes
Multi-Script OCR Compare?
Not all OCR engines are created equal—especially when it comes to global document processing. We built our multi-script OCR engine specifically for identity verification across 100+ languages, including right-to-left scripts like Arabic and Hebrew that most competitors can't handle.
Detailed Feature Comparison
See how Owl Eyes multi-script OCR stacks up against leading OCR solutions for identity document processing.
| Feature | 🦉Owl Eyes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Languages Supported | 109+ | ~30 | ~30 | 190+ |
| Processing Speed | <300ms | 2-3 seconds | 2-3 seconds | ~800ms |
| RTL Language Support Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu | ||||
| CJK Support Chinese, Japanese, Korean | ||||
| Devanagari/Indic Scripts Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, etc. | ||||
| Cyrillic Support Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian | ||||
| Cost per 1,000 Documents | Included* | $1.50-$2.00 | $1.50 | License-based |
| Accuracy (Latin) | 96-98% | 94-95% | 93% | 99.8% |
| Accuracy (Arabic RTL) | 94%+ | N/A | N/A | 92-95% |
| ID Document Optimized | Limited | Limited | ||
| Mixed-Script Documents | Partial | Partial | ||
| Confidence Scoring | ||||
| Vendor Lock-in | None | High (GCP) | High (AWS) | Medium |
| Data Privacy Control | Cloud-only | Cloud-only | On-prem available |
* OCR is included with every Owl Eyes verification. No separate per-document OCR charges.
Why Cloud OCR APIs Fall Short for Global ID Verification
Limited Language Support
Google Document AI and AWS Textract support approximately 30 languages—primarily English-focused. This leaves significant gaps for organizations verifying identities from the Middle East, South Asia, and parts of Eastern Europe.
No RTL (Right-to-Left) Support
Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Urdu are written right-to-left, often mixing with left-to-right numbers and Latin characters. Cloud APIs weren't designed to handle this bidirectional complexity.
High Latency
Cloud API round-trips add 2-3 seconds per document—acceptable for batch processing, but painfully slow for real-time identity verification where users are waiting.
Prohibitive Costs at Scale
At $1.50-$2.00 per 1,000 documents, cloud OCR costs add up quickly. Processing 100,000 documents monthly costs $150-$200 in OCR fees alone—on top of your verification costs.
Vendor Lock-in
Cloud OCR services tie you to a specific cloud provider. Migrating away means rebuilding integrations, retraining teams, and potentially rewriting applications.
Data Privacy Concerns
Identity documents contain sensitive PII. Cloud-only processing means your customers' passport data travels to third-party servers—a concern for compliance-heavy industries.
Total Cost of Ownership Analysis
When you factor in OCR costs, cloud API expenses grow exponentially with volume. Owl Eyes includes multi-script OCR at no additional per-document charge.
Cloud OCR API Approach
Plus integration costs, maintenance, and additional verification fees.
Owl Eyes Approach
OCR is built into every verification tier. Pay only for verifications.
How We Compare to ABBYY
ABBYY FineReader is the gold standard for enterprise OCR—but it's designed for general document processing, not identity verification. Here's how Owl Eyes differs.
Purpose-Built vs General Purpose
Pricing Model
Integration Complexity
Beyond OCR
Why Not Build Your Own OCR Pipeline?
Self-hosted OCR engines can be powerful, but building a production-grade multi-script OCR pipeline is harder than it looks.
GPU Infrastructure
PaddleOCR requires NVIDIA GPUs (L4 or T4) for production speeds. You'll need to provision, manage, and scale GPU instances—a significant DevOps investment.
Model Tuning
Out-of-the-box models struggle with ID documents. You'll need to fine-tune models on identity document datasets—especially for RTL and low-resource languages.
Script Detection & Routing
Automatically detecting script types and routing to the correct model requires building a visual script classifier and routing logic.
RTL Processing
Implementing the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (UAX #9) for proper Arabic/Hebrew text ordering is complex and error-prone.
Post-Processing Pipeline
Unicode normalization, confidence scoring, field extraction, and quality assurance require significant engineering effort.
Ongoing Maintenance
New document formats, updated security features, and model improvements require continuous investment in your OCR infrastructure.
Build It Yourself
- $20,000-$50,000 initial development
- $5,000-$10,000/month infrastructure
- 1-2 engineers dedicated to OCR
- 3-6 months to production quality
Use Owl Eyes
- OCR included at no extra cost
- 109+ languages from day one
- No infrastructure to manage
- Live in under 5 minutes
Where Owl Eyes Multi-Script OCR Excels
Global Financial Services
Process KYC documents from customers worldwide—including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel, India, China, Japan, and Russia—with consistent accuracy and compliance.
International Marketplaces
Verify sellers and buyers from any country without script limitations. Expand to new markets without building new OCR integrations.
Travel & Hospitality
Check in guests from any country instantly. Process passports in Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, and more without delays or manual data entry.
Remote Workforce
Verify international hires' identities during remote onboarding. Support candidates from 190+ countries with documents in their native language.
Healthcare & Telemedicine
Verify patient identities globally for telemedicine services. Handle international patient transfers and medical tourism with multilingual support.
Government & Immigration
Process visa applications, citizenship documents, and cross-border verifications with full RTL and CJK support.
Technical Specifications
Supported Script Families
- Latin (A-Z, accents, diacritics)
- Cyrillic (Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, etc.)
- Arabic (RTL: Arabic, Persian, Urdu)
- Hebrew (RTL)
- CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
- Devanagari (Hindi, Sanskrit, Nepali)
- Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam
- Thai, Greek, Georgian, Armenian
Performance Metrics
- Processing time: <300ms per document
- Latin accuracy: 96-98%
- Cyrillic accuracy: 95%+
- Arabic accuracy: 94%+
- CJK accuracy: 96%+
- Script detection: >99%
Output Format
- Unicode-normalized text (NFC)
- Per-field confidence scores
- Detected script types
- Bounding box coordinates
- Original and transliterated names
- Consistent JSON structure
Document Types
- Passports (all countries)
- National ID cards
- Driver's licenses
- Residence permits
- Visa documents
- Travel documents
Ready for Truly Global Verification?
Stop piecing together OCR solutions. Start verifying identities from any country, in any language, with a single integration.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is multi-script OCR?
Multi-script OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is technology that can read and extract text from documents written in multiple writing systems—not just the Latin alphabet used in English, but also Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, and other scripts. This is essential for global identity verification, where documents arrive in dozens of different languages and scripts.
Why can't Google Document AI read Arabic documents?
Google Document AI focuses primarily on English and major European languages. It doesn't support right-to-left (RTL) scripts like Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, or Urdu. These scripts require specialized bidirectional text processing that Google Document AI wasn't designed to handle. For organizations needing to verify identities from Middle Eastern countries, this is a significant limitation.
How does Owl Eyes handle mixed-language documents?
Many international ID documents contain multiple scripts—for example, an Arabic name with an English transliteration, or a Chinese name with Pinyin romanization. Owl Eyes automatically detects all scripts present on a document, processes each with the appropriate specialized model, and merges the results into a unified extraction with proper text ordering for each script type.
What is the cost difference between cloud OCR and Owl Eyes?
Cloud OCR APIs like Google Document AI and AWS Textract charge $1.50-$2.00 per 1,000 documents. At 100,000 documents per month, that's $150-$200 in OCR fees alone. Owl Eyes includes multi-script OCR as part of every verification tier—no separate OCR charges. You pay only for the verification, and OCR is included.
Which countries' documents does Owl Eyes support?
Owl Eyes supports identity documents from 190+ countries, including all major regions: Americas (US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil), Europe (EU, UK, Russia, Ukraine), Middle East (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel, Egypt), Asia Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Thailand), and Africa. Our multi-script OCR handles all script families used in government-issued identity documents worldwide.
Is Owl Eyes OCR GDPR compliant?
Yes. Unlike cloud-only OCR services where your data travels to third-party servers, Owl Eyes processes identity documents with full data protection controls. We provide complete audit trails, data retention controls, and compliance documentation for GDPR, CCPA, and industry-specific regulations.
Information Sources
The comparison data on this page is based on publicly available documentation, pricing pages, and technical specifications from each provider. We strive for accuracy but recommend verifying current details directly with each vendor.
Google Document AI
AWS Textract
ABBYY FineReader
PaddleOCR
Last updated: December 2025. Pricing and features are subject to change. All trademarks are property of their respective owners. Owl Eyes is not affiliated with Google, Amazon, or ABBYY. This comparison is provided for informational purposes only.