Docling
App in the BluixApps catalog
What it is
Docling is IBM's document conversion library that transforms PDFs, DOCX, PPTX, HTML into structured Markdown or JSON. Layout-aware OCR, table detection, image extraction, formula recognition — built specifically for RAG preprocessing where document structure matters.
The MIT-licensed open-source release is the same engine IBM uses in its enterprise AI offerings — high-quality output that captures semantic structure, not just plain text.
What it's for
- RAG preprocessing — convert your PDF library into clean Markdown for embedding
- Document digitization — OCR scanned documents with layout preserved
- Knowledge base ingestion — extract structured content from messy enterprise docs
- Compliance archival — convert physical documents to searchable format
- Content migration — DOCX → Markdown for static site generators
Who it's for
- AI engineers building RAG pipelines over real-world PDF corpora
- Knowledge management teams digitizing legacy document archives
- Legal & compliance converting contract PDFs into searchable Markdown
- Researchers extracting structured data from scientific papers
- Tech writers migrating documentation from Word/PDF to Markdown
Why teams pick Docling over alternatives
- Layout-aware — preserves table structure, headers, lists (vs simple text extraction)
- OCR built-in — handles scanned PDFs with Tesseract integration
- Formula recognition — STEM papers with equations stay intact
- Apache 2.0 — IBM-backed but fully open
- Python-first — clean API, easy to integrate
- Output flexibility — Markdown, JSON, with optional structured metadata
Integrations
- Python API — primary interface; pip install and go
- HTTP API mode — Docling-Serve wrapper exposes REST endpoint
- OCR engines — Tesseract, EasyOCR pluggable
- PDF parsers — pdfium, PyMuPDF backends
- LLM frameworks — LangChain document loader available
- Output formats — Markdown, JSON, DocLayNet structured format
- Embedded image handling — extract or inline as base64
Notable users & community
- 20k+ GitHub stars
- Backed by IBM Research with active engineering team
- Featured in IBM's enterprise AI stack
- Strong adoption in research / academic RAG pipelines
- Growing community around document AI use cases
Tips & operations
- Use HTTP mode for multi-language stacks — embedded Python only for Python apps; REST works for any client
- Pre-warm models — first request downloads several hundred MB of model weights; bake into image
- OCR vs text extraction — disable OCR for born-digital PDFs; saves 10× processing time
- Batch processing — Docling can handle multiple docs per request; batch when possible
- GPU acceleration — optional but significantly speeds OCR on scanned doc archives
- Output cleanup — Docling Markdown can need light post-processing for LLM ingestion
What we ship in BluixApps
- Docker compose: Docling-Serve HTTP wrapper
- Pinned
quay.io/ds4sd/docling-serve:latest(release-tagged) - HTTPS via Let's Encrypt; API key auth enabled
- OCR enabled by default with Tesseract
- Persistent model cache volume to avoid re-download on restart
- API rate limiting configured for fair use
- Backup not needed (stateless service)
Get this app — pick a BluixApps plan
Same catalog. Scaling tenant isolation, white-label and support tier.
| Tier | Tenants | Catalog | Support | White-label | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stacks | 1 | 19 curated stacks | Standard | — | $19/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Starter | 10 | Full catalog | Standard | +$15–25/mo | $49/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Pro | 25 | Full catalog | Priority bugfix | +$15–25/mo | $149/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Growth | 100 | Full catalog | Priority bugfix | +$15–25/mo | $349/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Scale | 500 | Full catalog | 7-day window | +$15–25/mo | $799/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Enterprise | Unlimited | Full catalog | Priority 7-day | Bundled | $1,499/mo | DetailDeploy |
