OCR.space Alternative: National ID Card OCR API

What OCR.space Is

OCR.space provides a general-purpose OCR API that returns recognized text. Choosing between it and an API comes down to where processing runs, how you pay, and which documents you need.

Where StructOCR Differs

StructOCR is a server-side REST API: you send an image and receive structured JSON for national id card, passport, vin. There is no SDK to embed, billing is 2 credits per successful request, credits never expire, and failed requests are not billed. See the National ID Card API docs or try the free scanner.

Where This Fits

• Choose OCR.space when: you need plain text from documents and will write your own field parsing.
• Choose StructOCR when: you need structured fields (names, dates, numbers) from IDs, passports, or vehicle documents.
• Use both when: You capture on a device with one tool and need server-side extraction or a fallback for uploaded images with the other.

Try the API in a Few Lines

A complete request takes one HTTP call with your API key.

Prerequisite: Python 3.9+, `pip install requests`, and a STRUCTOCR_API_KEY

import base64
import os
import requests

with open("id-card.jpg", "rb") as image_file:
    image = base64.b64encode(image_file.read()).decode("ascii")

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.structocr.com/v1/national-id",
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["STRUCTOCR_API_KEY"]},
    json={"img": image},
    timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()
data = response.json()["data"]
print("document_number:", data.get("document_number"))
print("surname:", data.get("surname"))
print("given_names:", data.get("given_names"))
print("date_of_birth:", data.get("date_of_birth"))

Response Shape

Illustrative fields returned by the StructOCR API for this document type.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "document_number": "…",
    "surname": "…",
    "given_names": "…",
    "date_of_birth": "…"
  }
}