CVAT vs VGG Image Annotator
CVAT
cvat.aiVGG Image Annotator
robots.ox.ac.ukSide by side
| Figure | CVAT | VGG Image Annotator |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $1.92/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 8 | 2 |
| Spec score · Image Annotation Software | 8.4 (#5) | 8.2 (#8) |
| Spec score · AI Image Annotation Tools | 8.4 (#5) | 8.2 (#7) |
| Spec score · AI Data Labeling Tools | 8.3 (#5) | 8.2 (#8) |
| Spec score · Data Labeling Software | 8.4 (#6) | 8.2 (#9) |
| Annotation features | Its visual annotation tools include boxes, pixel masks, polygons, keypoints, skeletons, and object tracks. | The user guide describes drawing regions such as rectangles, circles and points, and importing or exporting annotations as CSV or JSON. |
| Support | Enterprise Basic includes 24-hour email support with a 24-hour response SLA and a private helpdesk channel for urgent critical issues. | The makers direct users to an in-app basic guide, a FAQ and email contacts for queries or feedback. |
Plans
CVAT
- CommunityFree
- CVAT Online FreeFree
- CVAT Online Solo Yearly$23 a year
- CVAT Online Team Yearly$23 a year
- CVAT Online Solo Monthly$33 a month
- CVAT Online Team Monthly$33 a month
- Enterprise Basic$12,000 a year
- Enterprise PremiumPriced on request
In their own words
CVAT
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.
VGG Image Annotator
VGG Image Annotator (VIA) is a suite of lightweight browser tools for manually annotating images, audio, and video. The applications are distributed as single HTML files, allowing offline use without installation or setup. VIA3 handles images, video, audio, and shared or collaborative projects. VIA2 works with image files, does not support shared projects, and remains maintained. Annotation shapes include rectangles, circles, ellipses, points, polygons, and polylines. Projects can import or export annotations as CSV or JSON, while scripts support COCO and Web Annotation formats; a Python package converts VIA projects to COCO. Shared work can use a free public Version File Store maintained by the Visual Geometry Group, or a user-run VFS. VIA is built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript without external libraries and released under the two-clause BSD license for academic and commercial use. Downloads include ZIP archives and standalone HTML files for versions 2 and 3. The makers provide a guide, FAQ, and email contacts.