Pixsy vs trace.moe

Pixsy is an image-monitoring and licensing platform for creatives and image owners. Its reverse image search and AI monitoring look for online uses of submitted images around the clock and send email alerts when matches appear. Users can organize matches by country, category, commerciality, and other criteria, then filter the results. Pixsy can handle submitted cases through post-licensing and negotiation, with litigation potentially involving local legal partners; its stated fee is 50% on successful cases. It also says its takedown notices span more than 35 countries and 14 languages. Images can come from listed sync sources such as Flickr, SmugMug, Instagram, FTP, AWS S3, and the API, or be uploaded from Google Drive, Dropbox, or a computer. Pixsy describes itself as a software and image licensing company, not a law firm. The Free plan is free and monitors 500 images, with no takedown notices. Personal is $19 a month and monitors 2,000 images, with 20 monthly takedown notices. Web and API platforms are listed.

trace.moe searches anime scenes from screenshots and can identify a title, episode, and timestamp, then show a short preview to help confirm a match. It is for finding a scene rather than watching anime; access to the original video is limited to a few seconds. The search compares image colors and patterns using content-based retrieval, so it is designed for close matches rather than heavily altered screenshots. Crops, flips, rotations, strong filters, dark scenes, large text, and low-detail images can cause searches to fail; the FAQ recommends images at least 320×180 pixels. Its index covers officially published TV, web, DVD, and Blu-ray anime, with most Japanese anime since 2000 represented, though coverage is incomplete for some series. The service is available on the web, through an API, and as official screenshot-search extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Opera. Other official tools include a Telegram bot and an MCP server. Uploaded search images are deleted immediately according to the terms. The free service has no ads and is funded by donations; GitHub Sponsors plans offer daily API quotas and varying search priority.