COCO Annotator vs CVAT

COCO Annotator is a web-based tool for creating image annotations used in training data for localization and object detection. It supports bounding boxes, polygons, segmentation masks, keypoints, and points, along with disconnected shapes treated as one instance, multiple labels on an image segment, and custom metadata. Users can import existing COCO datasets and export annotations in COCO format. Assisted options include DEXTR, MaskRCNN, Magic Wand, semi-trained model annotation, and Google Images dataset generation. The software includes user authentication and a REST API, with a Swagger interface at localhost:5000/api. It is self-hosted on Linux or Windows, and Docker with docker-compose is required because Docker is the only supported installation method. Documentation covers development and production builds, centralized datasets, and external access. The server uses Flask, Eventlet, and Gunicorn, while long-running requests go to RabbitMQ workers. The project recommends HTTPS to encrypt browser-to-site communication and invites users to its Discord community. It is listed as free under an MIT-licensed plan.

CVAT turns images, video, 3D data and audio into labeled datasets for AI workflows. Its annotation tools include boxes, masks, polygons, keypoints, skeletons and object tracks, with additional listed types such as cuboids, ellipses and tags. Teams can review jobs through validation and acceptance stages and assess quality using ground truth, honeypots and consensus workflows. Storage connections include Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, compatible buckets and self-hosted storage. CVAT names SAM 2, SAM 3, Ultralytics, Hugging Face and custom models as labeling aids. It exports to more than 20 formats, including COCO, YOLO, KITTI, Cityscapes and Pascal VOC, and offers API, SDK and CLI automation. Deployment can be managed in the cloud or self-hosted, including on-premises and air-gapped options. Free plans are available; online paid plans start at $23/user/mo billed annually. CVAT lists security controls but says it does not hold ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certifications.