In simple English
This tool reads messy PDF files, scanned papers and photos of documents. You tell it what information you want in plain words. It uses artificial intelligence to find that information and turn it into neat digital tables. You can connect it to your database or run it as a web service. It runs on your own server and needs Docker (a way to run a program inside its own sealed box, so it cannot break anything else on your server).
What it is
Unstract is an open-source platform for extracting structured data from unstructured documents using language models and visual prompts. It combines a visual prompt studio, an API server, and automated data pipelines into one self-hosted system.
What it is good for
Solo builders who need to pull order details, invoices or medical forms into a database without writing custom regex patterns for every new document layout.
- Build extraction rules using plain language prompts instead of fragile code patterns.
- Pull files directly from cloud storage buckets and push clean results into SQL databases.
- Connects with local models or major cloud providers for text processing.
- Needs Docker and at least 8 GB of memory to run the entire backend stack smoothly.
- Complex multi-container setup requires patience for a non-programmer.
- Licensed under AGPL-3.0, which has strict rules if you offer it as a hosted service to others.
Writing custom regex parsers or paying expensive data extraction services
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git clone https://github.com/Zipstack/unstract.git cd unstract ./run-platform.sh