I tried Argon for a large historical HTR transcription project recently, since I heard it was really good at this. It was really good, but like all top US models I've used it was
* Definitively very good at domain specific knowledge. It can read sloppy 19th century danish gothic handwriting with faded ink just fine. Not perfectly, but probably better than I could have done with a day of struggle for every page.
* Expensive.
* Bad at actually doing what I said. I had told it in the prompt to be careful not to miss text, but I hadn't explicitly told it that some images may have text in double-column layout. So on those images - over half of my 300-page document - it produced an excellent transcription of the first column, and then considered itself done. Want to try again with a more careful prompt? That'll be another $20.
* Definitively very good at domain specific knowledge. It can read sloppy 19th century danish gothic handwriting with faded ink just fine. Not perfectly, but probably better than I could have done with a day of struggle for every page.
* Expensive.
* Bad at actually doing what I said. I had told it in the prompt to be careful not to miss text, but I hadn't explicitly told it that some images may have text in double-column layout. So on those images - over half of my 300-page document - it produced an excellent transcription of the first column, and then considered itself done. Want to try again with a more careful prompt? That'll be another $20.