# apache-tika-server

apache-tika-server is a document-parsing service that detects and extracts metadata and text from over a thousand file types, outputting Markdown by default for LLM and RAG pipelines. It is open source and self-hosted, installable on Docker Hub, Proxmox and Unraid.

Canonical page: https://ourlocalhost.com/app/378/apache-tika-server

## Description

Apache Tika Server is a document-parsing service that detects and extracts metadata and text from over a thousand file types, outputting Markdown by default for LLM and RAG pipelines.

## Platform availability

Available on 2 of 9 platforms: Unraid, Proxmox.

## Health score

75/100 (Good), based on 3 of 4 factors.
- Maintained: 100 (last commit 16 days ago)
- Popular: 72 (4,088 GitHub stars)
- Easy to install: 30 (2 install platforms, Docker image)

## Links

- Docker Hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/apache/tika
- Proxmox: https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/scripts?id=apache-tika
- Unraid: https://ca.unraid.net/apps/apache-tika-server-0cw4tlc14im17o?q=apache-tika-server
- Official website: https://tika.apache.org/
- GitHub: https://github.com/apache/tika
- Documentation: https://tika.apache.org/4.1.0/api/

## Common questions

### Does tika-server use a forked process for parsing endpoints?

The parsing endpoints /tika, /rmeta, /unpack, /meta, and /detect run in forked JVMs via Tika Pipes. That isolation prevents a parser crash or OOM from taking down the request-handling process, and it requires a Pipes configuration.

### What tika-server configuration capabilities were added in 4.1.0?

Tika 4.1.0 adds named configuration presets for tika-server, Micrometer metrics, and environment-variable interpolation in tika-config.json. OCR and enrichment engines are selected by name through a text-recognizers list.

### Does the tika-app jar work if I deploy only the jar?

No, the tika-app jar is a thin launcher that loads parsers from the adjacent lib/ directory. If run without the rest of the unzipped distribution, it fails with NoClassDefFoundError.

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Source: Our Local Host (https://ourlocalhost.com/app/378/apache-tika-server), the self-hosted and open-source app directory.