pix2tex vs Nougat
Which should you use? A side-by-side look at what each one does, who it suits, what it costs, how hard it is to set up, and where each falls short.
Open source · MIT
Converts a picture of a math formula into LaTeX code using a learned image-to-text model.
Open source · MIT
Converts academic PDFs into markup text, preserving LaTeX math and tables.
The short answer
Choose pix2tex if you need…
- Students who want to turn a handwritten or printed formula photo into editable LaTeX
- Writers who need to copy a formula from a screenshot or PDF into LaTeX
- Developers who want to call a formula-to-LaTeX model from Python
- People who want a quick local tool and are comfortable installing Python packages
Choose Nougat if you need…
- Researchers who want editable text from arXiv-style papers with equations and tables
- People building datasets of scientific documents in markup form
- Developers who want a local PDF-to-markup conversion step in a pipeline
- Users processing mostly English, Latin-alphabet academic papers
Side-by-side
| pix2tex | Nougat | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | AI model / agent | AI model / agent |
| Price | Free and open source | Free and open source |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 16.6k | 10.1k |
| Setup difficulty | Intermediate | Intermediate |
| How you get it | Install with a package manager | Install with a package manager |
| Main language | Python | Python |
| Last code update | 22 months ago | 21 months ago |
What each one is
pix2tex
pix2tex takes an image of a math formula, such as a photo or screenshot, and returns the matching LaTeX code so you can paste it into a document. It is built on a neural network that combines a Vision Transformer encoder with a Transformer decoder. You can use it from a command line tool, a small desktop GUI, a Streamlit demo, or Python.
Nougat
Nougat is a neural model from Meta's research team that reads scientific PDF papers and converts them into a lightweight markup format (.mmd) that is mostly compatible with Mathpix Markdown. It is built to handle LaTeX math and tables, which ordinary PDF text extraction often mangles. You run it from the command line or start a local API to process documents.
Best for
pix2tex
- Students who want to turn a handwritten or printed formula photo into editable LaTeX
- Writers who need to copy a formula from a screenshot or PDF into LaTeX
- Developers who want to call a formula-to-LaTeX model from Python
- People who want a quick local tool and are comfortable installing Python packages
Nougat
- Researchers who want editable text from arXiv-style papers with equations and tables
- People building datasets of scientific documents in markup form
- Developers who want a local PDF-to-markup conversion step in a pipeline
- Users processing mostly English, Latin-alphabet academic papers
Strengths
pix2tex
- Free and open source under the MIT license
- Offers several ways to use it: command line, GUI, API, and Python
- Model checkpoints download automatically after installation
Nougat
- Designed specifically for LaTeX math and tables in academic PDFs
- Offers a command-line tool, a local API, and pip installation
- Code is MIT licensed and the project is backed by a published arXiv paper
Not ideal for
pix2tex
- Users who need guaranteed-correct output: the README says to always double check results, and accuracy is moderate (token accuracy 0.60)
- Users with very large or heavily zoomed images, since the README says the model handles huge images poorly
- Users who cannot install Python or PyTorch, since the package requires them
- Users who need to convert whole documents rather than single formulas, since the project targets math formula images
Nougat
- Documents in Chinese, Russian, Japanese and similar languages, which the README says will not work
- Non-academic PDFs like invoices or forms, since the model was trained on arXiv and PMC papers
- Users without a GPU who need fast throughput, since CPU use may be slow and can trigger false failure detections
- Commercial projects needing unrestricted model use, because the model weights are licensed CC-BY-NC
Trade-offs
pix2tex
- Output must be checked carefully; the README reports a BLEU score of 0.88 and token accuracy of 0.60
- Works best with smaller-resolution images and is sensitive to how the picture is taken
- Documentation is incomplete; the README says the author is still compiling it
Nougat
- Model weights are CC-BY-NC, so they cannot be used commercially despite the MIT-licensed code
- Works poorly outside English-style scientific documents and can return [MISSING_PAGE] responses
- Setup on Windows with GPU requires installing a matching PyTorch version first
Getting started
pix2tex
Install the package with GUI support
pip install "pix2tex[gui]"Nougat
Install from PyPI
pip install nougat-ocrInstall from the repository
pip install git+https://github.com/facebookresearch/nougatFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between pix2tex and Nougat?
pix2tex: Converts a picture of a math formula into LaTeX code using a learned image-to-text model. Nougat: Converts academic PDFs into markup text, preserving LaTeX math and tables. pix2tex suits students who want to turn a handwritten or printed formula photo into editable latex, while Nougat suits researchers who want editable text from arxiv-style papers with equations and tables.
Are pix2tex and Nougat free?
pix2tex: Free and open source. Nougat: Free and open source.
Is pix2tex or Nougat more popular?
pix2tex has more GitHub stars (16.6k) than Nougat (10.1k). Popularity isn't the same as fit — check which one matches your use case above.
What are other alternatives to pix2tex and Nougat?
Other options people compare them with include FinGPT, JARVIS, CLIP, Docling.
Keep comparing
Built from our catalogue entries for both products: open-source details come from each project's README (AI-assisted, refreshed weekly) and GitHub data; AI-tool details are editorial. Spotted something wrong? Let us know from either product's page.