Advanced vs Experimental vs Deviant vs Universal

[karipov]

Hello!

I've noticed this organization maintains, simultaneously, several forks of ScanTailor, such as Advabced, Experimental, Deviant, Universal. I understand that this project's README features a review of feature differences, but it seems quite outdated.

As someone that has worked on all of these different versions, do you have a "layman's" explanation of differences between the different families of ScanTailor? When should someone use one or the other? Pros / Cons?

[zvezdochiot]

Hi @karipov .

https://churochkin.livejournal.com/ say:

an attempt to review the history of the development and forks of the Scan Tailor program

Program name/fork	Version history	Release years	Author	Base	Support GPGPU	Compilation capability "out of the box"	Repository link
1. Scan Tailor (ST)	20080514 — 0.9.11	2008-2012	Joseph Artsimovich (Tulon)	-	no	n/a	https://sourceforge.net/projects/scantailor/files/scantailor/
2. Scan Tailor	0.9.11.1 — 0.9.12.1	2014-2016	Nate Craun	ST	no	n/a	https://github.com/scantailor/scantailor
3. Scan Tailor Enhanced	20110902 — 20140214	2011-2014	Petr Kovar (pejuko)	ST	no	n/a	https://sourceforge.net/projects/scantailor/files/scantailor-devel/enhanced/
4. Scan Tailor Plus	0.9.11pre-2011-11-30 — 0.9.11-2012-03-06	2011-2012	Vadim Kuznetsov (DikBSD)	ST	no	n/a	https://sourceforge.net/projects/scantailor/files/scantailor-devel/plus/
5. Scan Tailor Featured	2013.05.31	2013	Viktor Ivanov (monday2000)	ST	no	n/a	https://sourceforge.net/projects/scantailor/files/scantailor-devel/featured/
6. Scan Tailor Experimental (STEX) (first)	2015-07-14 — 2016-02-22	2015-2016	Joseph Artsimovich (Tulon)	ST (mod)	Interface + processing	no	https://github.com/Tulon/scantailor
7. Scan Tailor Advanced (the first one)	1.0.0 — 2019.8.16	2017-2019	4lex4	ST	Interface	?	https://github.com/4lex4/scantailor-advanced
8. Scan Tailor Universal	0.1.x (0.1.2) — 0.2.14	2018-2023	Alexander Trufanov (trufanov-nok)	ST	no	yes	https://github.com/trufanov-nok/scantailor-universal
9. Scan Tailor Advanced (second)	1.0.17 — 1.0.19	2022-2023	Virgil Grigoras (vigri)	ST	Interface	yes	https://github.com/ScanTailor-Advanced/scantailor-advanced
10. Scan Tailor Advanced (third)	1.0.18 — 1.0.19	2023	zvezdochiot	ST	Interface	yes	https://github.com/ImageProcessing-ElectronicPublications/scantailor-advanced/
11. Scan Tailor Experimental (second)	0.201704.10 — 1.2025.04.04	2023 — present. time	zvezdochiot, Mikhail Morozov (plzombie), noobie-iv	STEX	Interface + processing	yes	https://github.com/ImageProcessing-ElectronicPublications/scantailor-experimental
12. Scan Tailor Deviant	2023.11.27a — 2025.04.02b3	2023 — present time	noobie-iv, zvezdochiot	ST+STEX	no	yes	https://github.com/ImageProcessing-ElectronicPublications/scantailor-deviant

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scan_Tailor say:

Forks:

• Scan Tailor Advanced (STA) for Windows. Portable version for Linux.
• Scan Tailor Universal (STU) for Windows, Linux, Mac OS.
• Scan Tailor Experimental (STEX) with new intelligent page processing functions from I.Artsimovich.
• Scan Tailor Deviant (STD) - a hybrid of the Universal (basic) and Experimental (page straightening) families. The direction of development is photoscans.

See also STA: Scan Tailor "Experimental" #73

[karipov]

Thank you! Here are my takeways:

• STEX is easier to develop in due to the code structure of the original (Tulon's) repository
• STA has more features, but lacks some features like advanced dewarping, etc that STEX has
• STD is aimed at photoscans

Are there any other major differences you can talk about? The table you've provided is very helpful to see a timeline, but not the feature parity between different scantailor versions. Thanks again for your work!

[zvezdochiot]

@karipov say:

STA has more features, but lacks some features like advanced dewarping, etc that STEX has

Wrong. You didn't read the table carefully.

All members of the ST family are made of the same elements and in a similar way. But the author (Tulon) did two basics: ST and STEX. He abandoned the first (ST) in favor of the second (STEX). But all the forks evolved from the first (ST), while the second was untouched and abandoned. STEX was only in the form of releases by Tulon itself.

What are the differences between the two bases?

The difference is that Tulon recognized the first foundation as unsuccessful and flawed. Although the components were the same.

Having worked for a long time at ST, STA, STU and STEX, I also came to the conclusion that the first foundation was flawed. Dewarping must be performed before the content is aligned. But in forks based on ST dewarping after page alignment and layout.

In addition, all forks are based on disagreement with Tulon's concept of minimizing user involvement and maximizing automation. There was a problem here. Automation has not reached the same level as minification of user engagement. And each fork eliminated this imbalance in its own way.

But no one has canceled the inferiority of the first foundation (ST). And the second foundation (STEX) was abandoned and arose among users only in wet dreams (except for Tulon assemblies there was nothing).

And so it went from 2016 to 2023...