Scale Rapid vs VGG Image Annotator

Scale Rapid provides machine learning engineers and researchers with labeled data and instruction feedback for experiments, with availability described as being possible in as little as one hour. Customers can create labeling projects, write and submit their own instructions, and upload data through the web interface or API. They can improve quality by creating or updating evaluation tasks, then inspect quality and throughput metrics, including edge case detection. Rapid supports bounding box, polygon, line, cuboid, ellipse, and point annotations, and includes a review workflow. Research teams and startups can use it while iterating on experimental models and labeling instructions. Scale describes Rapid as early access and directs interested customers to a waitlist or contact process. The paid, pay-as-you-go plan is billed per label, with no minimum commitments, annual contracts, or platform fees. Listed platforms are web and API. Scale documentation includes product guides, workflows, API concepts, and endpoint references.

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.