GitHub - zai-org/GLM-OCR: GLM-OCR: Accurate × Fast × Comprehensive (original) (raw)

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Model Introduction

GLM-OCR is a multimodal OCR model for complex document understanding, built on the GLM-V encoder–decoder architecture. It introduces Multi-Token Prediction (MTP) loss and stable full-task reinforcement learning to improve training efficiency, recognition accuracy, and generalization. The model integrates the CogViT visual encoder pre-trained on large-scale image–text data, a lightweight cross-modal connector with efficient token downsampling, and a GLM-0.5B language decoder. Combined with a two-stage pipeline of layout analysis and parallel recognition based on PP-DocLayout-V3, GLM-OCR delivers robust and high-quality OCR performance across diverse document layouts.

Key Features

• State-of-the-Art Performance: Achieves a score of 94.62 on OmniDocBench V1.5, ranking #1 overall, and delivers state-of-the-art results across major document understanding benchmarks, including formula recognition, table recognition, and information extraction.
• Optimized for Real-World Scenarios: Designed and optimized for practical business use cases, maintaining robust performance on complex tables, code-heavy documents, seals, and other challenging real-world layouts.
• Efficient Inference: With only 0.9B parameters, GLM-OCR supports deployment via vLLM, SGLang, and Ollama, significantly reducing inference latency and compute cost, making it ideal for high-concurrency services and edge deployments.
• Easy to Use: Fully open-sourced and equipped with a comprehensive SDK and inference toolchain, offering simple installation, one-line invocation, and smooth integration into existing production pipelines.

News & Updates

• [2026.3.12] GLM-OCR SDK now supports agent-friendly Skill mode — just pip install glmocr + set API key, ready to use via CLI or Python with no GPU or YAML config needed. See: GLM-OCR Skill
• [2026.3.12] GLM-OCR Technical Report is now available. See: GLM-OCR Technical Report
• [2026.2.12] Fine-tuning tutorial based on LLaMA-Factory is now available. See: GLM-OCR Fine-tuning Guide

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GLM-OCR SDK

We provide an SDK for using GLM-OCR more efficiently and conveniently.

Install SDK

Choose the lightest installation that matches your scenario:

Cloud / MaaS + local images / PDFs (fastest install)

pip install glmocr

Self-hosted pipeline (layout detection)

pip install "glmocr[selfhosted]"

Flask service support

pip install "glmocr[server]"

Install from source for development:

Install from source

git clone https://github.com/zai-org/glm-ocr.git cd glm-ocr uv venv --python 3.12 --seed && source .venv/bin/activate uv pip install -e .

Model Deployment

Two ways to use GLM-OCR:

Option 1: Zhipu MaaS API (Recommended for Quick Start)

Use the hosted cloud API – no GPU needed. The cloud service runs the complete GLM-OCR pipeline internally, so the SDK simply forwards your request and returns the result.

1. Get an API key from https://open.bigmodel.cn
2. Configure config.yaml:

pipeline: maas: enabled: true # Enable MaaS mode api_key: your-api-key # Required

That's it! When maas.enabled=true, the SDK acts as a thin wrapper that:

• Forwards your documents to the Zhipu cloud API
• Returns the results directly (Markdown + JSON layout details)
• No local processing, no GPU required

Input note (MaaS): the upstream API accepts file as a URL or a data:<mime>;base64,... data URI. If you have raw base64 without the data: prefix, wrap it as a data URI (recommended). The SDK will auto-wrap local file paths / bytes / raw base64 into a data URI when calling MaaS.

API documentation: https://docs.bigmodel.cn/cn/guide/models/vlm/glm-ocr

Option 2: Self-host with vLLM / SGLang

Deploy the GLM-OCR model locally for full control. The SDK provides the complete pipeline: layout detection, parallel region OCR, and result formatting.

Install the self-hosted extra first:

pip install "glmocr[selfhosted]"

Using vLLM

Install vLLM:

docker pull vllm/vllm-openai:v0.19.0-ubuntu2404

Or using with pip:

pip install -U "vllm>=0.19.0"

Launch the service:

pip install "transformers>=5.3.0"

vllm serve zai-org/GLM-OCR --port 8080 --speculative-config '{"method": "mtp", "num_speculative_tokens": 3}' --served-model-name glm-ocr

Note Add --max-model-len and --gpu-memory-utilization according to Your own machine to handle large image/pdf

Using SGLang

Install SGLang:

docker pull lmsysorg/sglang:v0.5.10

Or using with pip:

pip install "sglang>=0.5.10"

Launch the service:

SGLANG_ENABLE_SPEC_V2=1 sglang serve --model-path zai-org/GLM-OCR --port 8080 --speculative-algorithm NEXTN --speculative-num-steps 3 --speculative-eagle-topk 1 --speculative-num-draft-tokens 4 --served-model-name glm-ocr

Note Add --context-len and --mem-fraction-static according to Your own machine to handle large image/pdf

Option 3: Ollama/MLX

For specialized deployment scenarios, see the detailed guides:

• Apple Silicon with mlx-vlm - Optimized for Apple Silicon Macs
• Ollama Deployment - Simple local deployment with Ollama

Option 4: SDK Server + Client (GPU-less Client)

Deploy the SDK Server on a GPU machine, then use any machine as a client — no GPU needed on the client side. The client connects via the MaaS-compatible protocol, pointing api_url at your self-hosted server.

Client config.yaml

pipeline: maas: enabled: true api_url: http://:5002/glmocr/parse api_key: any-string # self-hosted server does not validate keys verify_ssl: false

See the full guide: Self-hosted SDK Server + Client

Update Configuration

After launching the service, configure config.yaml:

pipeline: maas: enabled: false # Disable MaaS mode (default) ocr_api: api_host: localhost # or your vLLM/SGLang server address api_port: 8080

SDK Usage Guide

CLI

Parse a single image

glmocr parse examples/source/code.png

Parse a directory

glmocr parse examples/source/

Set output directory

glmocr parse examples/source/code.png --output ./results/

Use a custom config

glmocr parse examples/source/code.png --config my_config.yaml

Enable debug logging with profiling

glmocr parse examples/source/code.png --log-level DEBUG

Run layout detection on CPU (keep GPU free for OCR model)

glmocr parse examples/source/code.png --layout-device cpu

Run layout detection on a specific GPU

glmocr parse examples/source/code.png --layout-device cuda:1

Override any config value via --set (dotted path, repeatable)

glmocr parse examples/source/code.png --set pipeline.ocr_api.api_port 8080 glmocr parse examples/source/ --set pipeline.layout.use_polygon true --set logging.level DEBUG

Python API

from glmocr import GlmOcr, parse

Simple function

result = parse("image.png") result = parse(["img1.png", "img2.jpg"]) result = parse("https://example.com/image.png") result.save(output_dir="./results")

Note: a list is treated as pages of a single document.

Class-based API

with GlmOcr() as parser: result = parser.parse("image.png") print(result.json_result) result.save()

Place layout model on CPU (useful when GPU is reserved for OCR)

with GlmOcr(layout_device="cpu") as parser: result = parser.parse("image.png")

Place layout model on a specific GPU

with GlmOcr(layout_device="cuda:1") as parser: result = parser.parse("image.png")

Flask Service

Install the optional server dependency first:

pip install "glmocr[server]"

Start service

python -m glmocr.server

With debug logging

python -m glmocr.server --log-level DEBUG

Call API

curl -X POST http://localhost:5002/glmocr/parse
-H "Content-Type: application/json"
-d '{"images": ["./example/source/code.png"]}'

Semantics:

• images can be a string or a list.
• A list is treated as pages of a single document.
• For multiple independent documents, call the endpoint multiple times (one document per request).

Modular Architecture

GLM-OCR uses composable modules for easy customization:

You can extend the behavior by creating custom pipelines:

from glmocr.dataloader import PageLoader from glmocr.ocr_client import OCRClient from glmocr.postprocess import ResultFormatter

class MyPipeline: def init(self, config): self.page_loader = PageLoader(config) self.ocr_client = OCRClient(config) self.formatter = ResultFormatter(config)

def process(self, request_data): # Implement your own processing logic pass

Star History

Acknowledgement

This project is inspired by the excellent work of the following projects and communities:

• PP-DocLayout-V3
• PaddleOCR
• MinerU

License

The Code of this repo is under Apache License 2.0.

The GLM-OCR model is released under the MIT License.

The complete OCR pipeline integrates PP-DocLayoutV3 for document layout analysis, which is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. Users should comply with both licenses when using this project.

Citation

If you find GLM-OCR useful in your research, please cite our technical report:

@misc{duan2026glmocrtechnicalreport, title={GLM-OCR Technical Report}, author={Shuaiqi Duan and Yadong Xue and Weihan Wang and Zhe Su and Huan Liu and Sheng Yang and Guobing Gan and Guo Wang and Zihan Wang and Shengdong Yan and Dexin Jin and Yuxuan Zhang and Guohong Wen and Yanfeng Wang and Yutao Zhang and Xiaohan Zhang and Wenyi Hong and Yukuo Cen and Da Yin and Bin Chen and Wenmeng Yu and Xiaotao Gu and Jie Tang}, year={2026}, eprint={2603.10910}, archivePrefix={arXiv}, primaryClass={cs.CL}, url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.10910}, }