Chiasm vs Pupil Player
Chiasm
chiasm.euPupil Player
docs.pupil-labs.comSide by side
| Figure | Chiasm | Pupil Player |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | €199/mo | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 4 | 0 |
| Spec score · Eye Tracking Software | 8.4 (#1) | 7.1 (#21) |
| Headquarters | Amsterdam, The Netherlands | Berlin, Germany |
| Intended users | The service is for business, professional, academic, institutional or organisational use and is not intended for consumers using it personally. | Pupil Labs describes the Core documentation as serving users getting started with eye-tracking glasses and developers building eye-tracking applications and integrations. |
| Purpose | Chiasm captures gaze data from participants’ webcams for online studies and research. | Pupil Player is a media and data visualizer for viewing Pupil Capture recordings and exporting data. |
| Support | Standard technical support is best effort and includes bug fixes, platform-use assistance, documentation and general guidance; study-design advice and data analysis are excluded. | The Core documentation directs users with issues or questions to the Pupil Labs Discord chat. |
Plans
In their own words
Chiasm
Chiasm captures gaze data through participants’ webcams for remote online studies and research. It processes webcam frames in real time and produces timestamped gaze coordinates linked to study events, together with session metadata. Researchers can connect it to Qualtrics, jsPsych, or custom web studies through a JavaScript library. Chiasm says studies can include hundreds of participants at once. Researchers can download gaze data from Chiasm or stream it to their own server; when used with platforms such as Qualtrics, data is held on Chiasm’s servers for later export. Webcam video is not stored by default, though limited calibration or validation recordings may be retained with explicit opt-in consent. The service supports Google Chrome on laptops and desktop computers with webcams. Flex has no monthly minimum and costs €0.25 per minute. Starter is €199 per month with 900 participant-minutes included, and Pro is €499 per month with 3,000 participant-minutes included. A 7-day trial is listed.
Pupil Player
Pupil Player is free, open-source software for viewing, analyzing, and exporting Pupil Capture recordings. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and uses hardware recordings as input. Playback includes frame stepping, timeline trimming, and five speeds from 0.25x through 4x. A plugin framework adds gaze displays, marker and surface tracking, and data export. Analysis plugins cover post-hoc fixation and blink detection, pupil detection, gaze calibration, mapping, validation, and head-pose tracking. Visualizations can show circles, crosses, polylines, light points, heatmaps, or fixation overlays. Raw Data Exporter writes pupil and gaze data as CSV, while World Video Exporter saves visualized video. An iMotions exporter creates undistorted world video and gaze.tlv data. Exports go into an exports subfolder without removing or overwriting raw captures. Available plugins depend on the recording source, and eye-video overlays require eye video enabled during capture. Runtime-loaded Python plugins can extend the software.