Textract returned 10.5% WER on our sample, close to Azure, with mostly intact reading order. Its home turf is structured documents: printed forms, tables, and key-value extraction, all wired neatly into the AWS ecosystem with async processing and IAM.
On handwriting it is competent on clear print-style writing and drops off quickly on cursive. Its Forms and Queries features are priced around $50 per 1,000 pages, which is specialist territory, but the handwriting accuracy underneath is not, so on handwritten forms you pay a premium for mid-tier recognition.
Choose it when your pipeline already lives in AWS and your documents are printed forms with the odd handwritten field. For handwriting-first work, a specialist engine is both more accurate and, at that price point, better value.