compare
Frenchie vs Marker.
Marker is a library you run. Frenchie is a server your agent calls.
Marker is an open-source PDF-to-Markdown library you install, run, and operate. Frenchie is an MCP server your agent invokes directly — no glue code, no deploy pipeline, no GPU capacity to plan for. If you're building a batch ingestion pipeline you want to own end to end, Marker is a solid pick. If you want an agent to parse PDFs in the middle of a conversation, that's us.
side by side
The shape of each tool.
| Dimension | Marker | Frenchie |
|---|---|---|
| Integration surface | Python library, called from your own code | MCP server, called from any MCP client (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Antigravity, Claude Desktop) |
| Hosting model | Self-hosted — you run it on your hardware | Fully managed — send file, receive Markdown |
| Primary use case | Batch pipelines, research corpora, ETL jobs | Agent-driven OCR inside live conversations |
| Ops burden | Dependencies, GPU/CPU capacity, queues, retries, monitoring | Zero infrastructure — ship an API key and go |
pick Marker
When Marker is the right call
- You're processing tens of thousands of pages a month and per-page cost dominates your budget.
- You want the output format, model weights, and pre/post-processing fully under your control.
- Your workload is batch-first — nightly jobs, research indexing, warehouse ETL — and fits inside a script you already maintain.
pick frenchie
When Frenchie is the right call
- Your agent needs to read a PDF mid-conversation and you don't want to wire a library into the agent process.
- You don't want to own OCR ops — dependency updates, infrastructure, scaling, retries.
- You're shipping an MCP-based product and want OCR to feel like a native tool call.
together
Can you use both?
Plenty of teams run both. Marker handles the scheduled overnight batch that feeds the warehouse. Frenchie handles the one-off PDFs your agent hits during a user session — where latency matters more than cost per page. Credits don't expire, so Frenchie sits idle quietly while the batch pipeline does its thing.
questions
The ones that come up.
Is Frenchie cheaper than running Marker?
At small-to-medium volume, Frenchie is cheaper once you count your time — you don't run infrastructure. At high volume (thousands of pages a day, predictable load), a well-tuned Marker deployment wins on unit economics.
Can I switch from Marker to Frenchie?
Yes. Frenchie has no lock-in on your side — you call an MCP tool, you get Markdown. If you later want to move off, your code just calls a different tool. We don't hold onto files or training data.
Does Frenchie give me the same structured output as Marker?
Clean Markdown, preserved table structure, extracted figures as PNGs, and page breaks. For most downstream workflows — agents, RAG indexes, human review — the two are interchangeable on output shape.
Why not just use Marker?
Run it if your workflow is batch and you want full control. Call Frenchie if your workflow is agent-driven and you want zero ops. Those are different shapes — pick the one that matches yours.
See if Frenchie fits.
100 free credits on signup. No card. Try it against a real PDF or scan from your workflow — compare the Markdown side by side.