Data Annotation Tools

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Image Annotation Tools

Image annotation tools let you draw the labels a computer vision model learns from: boxes for detection, polygons and masks for segmentation, keypoints for pose. These 22 tools document real computer vision label types, from free browser apps to managed platforms.

Facts checked Nov 8, 2026

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Instance segmentation: 24 coins, each traced as its own mask by open-source scikit-image code.

22 image annotation tools

Facts checked against each tool's own docs, pricing page or repository on Nov 8, 2026. Order: most of our 8 documented checks first. No tool paid for its place. How we compare.

  1. 1

    CVAT

    CVAT.ai Corporation · Open core (MIT)

    8/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation, Rotated box · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    On your own server, on private infrastructure (VPC or on-premises), or in the vendor's cloudLast release Nov 5, 2026
    Price
    Community Edition: free and open source (MIT), self-hosted. CVAT Online: free plan with 1 GB and 3 tasks; Solo $33 a month, or $23 a month billed yearly; Team $33 per user a month, 2 seats minimum.
    The catch
    CVAT's own FAQ says the free self-hosted edition has no automated QA and no SSO, and that CVAT holds no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification.
  2. 2

    Label Studio

    HumanSignal · Open core (Apache-2.0)

    8/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Keypoints, Segmentation, Rotated box · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    On your own server, on private infrastructure (VPC or on-premises), or in the vendor's cloudLast release Sep 29, 2026
    Price
    Community Edition: free and open source (Apache-2.0), self-hosted. Starter Cloud: $99 a month plus $49 a month per extra user, up to 12 users. Enterprise: by quote.
    The catch
    Reviewer assignment, agreement metrics and roles are not in the free Community Edition; they start with Starter Cloud.
  3. 3

    Labellerr

    Tensor Matics, Inc. · Commercial

    8/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    On private infrastructure (VPC or on-premises) or in the vendor's cloud
    Price
    Free Researcher plan for students and researchers (by application): 2,500 data credits, 1 seat. Pro: $9,999 a year. Enterprise: by quote.
    The catch
    DICOM, LiDAR and NIfTI files are listed only on the custom-priced Enterprise plan, and its FAQ quotes a Pro price of $499 a month while the pricing table says $9,999 a year.
  4. 4

    BasicAI

    BasicAI · Commercial

    7/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    On private infrastructure (VPC or on-premises)
    Price
    Private-cloud deployment from $6,600 a year, sized per company. No free plan on the pricing page.
    The catch
    Self-serve cloud plans are gone from the pricing page, while its docs still describe a free cloud plan, so confirm what you're buying.
  5. 5

    Supervisely

    Supervisely · Commercial

    7/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Keypoints, Segmentation · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    On your own server, on private infrastructure (VPC or on-premises), or in the vendor's cloud
    Price
    Community: free, 2 members, 5 GB, hosted in Germany. Pro: from €199 a month with 3 members, €85 per extra member. Enterprise: by quote.
    The catch
    Pro's base price leaves out the advanced toolboxes: point cloud, video and medical tools at full limits are paid add-ons, and point clouds alone add €399.
  6. 6

    Kili Technology

    Kili Technology · Commercial

    7/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    On private infrastructure (VPC or on-premises) or in the vendor's cloud
    Price
    Free Trial plan: $0 a month, 2 to 5 seats, 100 assets (5 for video). Grow and Enterprise: custom pricing, no numbers printed.
    The catch
    Each project tops out at 25,000 assets, so bigger datasets get split across projects.
  7. 7

    Roboflow

    Roboflow · Cloud service

    7/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Keypoints, Segmentation · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    In the vendor's cloud
    Price
    Free Tier: $0, 10 credits a month. Core: $39 a month for a credit pack. Credits pay for storage, AI labeling, training and deployment.
    The catch
    New workspaces have data licensing and model training on private projects switched on by default; an admin has to opt out. Review Mode and roles need the Teams add-on.
  8. 8

    Encord

    Encord (Cord Technologies, Inc.) · Commercial

    6/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation, Rotated box · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    On private infrastructure (VPC or on-premises) or in the vendor's cloud
    Price
    No prices printed for the Starter, Team or Enterprise plans. No free plan is listed.
    The catch
    Point clouds, DICOM and NIfTI are add-ons on the Team plan and come with Enterprise, where VPC and on-prem installs are add-ons too.
  9. 9

    X-AnyLabeling

    CVHub (Wei Wang) · Open source (GPL-3.0)

    6/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation, Rotated box · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    On your computerLast release Nov 2, 2026
    Price
    Free and open source (GPL-3.0), including commercial use under the license.
    The catch
    A one-person desktop app with no reviewer roles, and the release notes say the prebuilt package may not run on every system.
  10. 10

    Dataloop

    Dataloop Ltd., part of Dell Technologies · Commercial

    6/8 checks

    Renamed Dell Data Orchestration Engine on March 30, 2026.

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    On private infrastructure (VPC or on-premises) or in the vendor's cloud
    Price
    No public prices: billing is metered on time spent in the labeling tool, stored items and compute. The only free option is an academic license.
    The catch
    Its COCO, YOLO and Pascal VOC exports cover images only; everything else exports as its own JSON.
  11. 11

    Labelme

    Kentaro Wada (labelme.io) · Open core (GPL-3.0)

    6/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation, Rotated box · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    On your computerLast release Oct 25, 2026
    Price
    Open-source package: free (GPL-3.0). Desktop app: Pro $79 once with a year of updates, Lifetime $249, Team $249 per seat for 5 or more seats.
    The catch
    YOLO and YOLO-OBB export and the no-Python installer are in the paid app; the free package saves Labelme JSON, with example scripts for VOC and COCO.
  12. 12

    Segments.ai

    Segments.ai (site logo reads 'Segments.ai by Uber') · Cloud service

    6/8 checks

    Its site now brands it Segments.ai by Uber.

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation
    Runs
    In the vendor's cloud
    Price
    No free plan, a 14-day trial on Core. Core: custom quote from 3,600 labeling hours a year (equal to $2.67 an hour), unlimited seats.
    The catch
    The entry Core plan caps each point cloud at 500,000 points; bigger scans need the Fusion plan.
  13. 13

    doccano

    doccano open-source project (GitHub org doccano) · Open source (MIT)

    6/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Segmentation
    Runs
    On your own serverLast release Jan 11, 2026
    Price
    Free and open source (MIT); you host it yourself.
    The catch
    NER projects export only as JSONL; there's no CoNLL or spaCy export, and no agreement scoring in the docs.
  14. 14

    Prodigy

    Explosion · Paid license

    6/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon
    Runs
    On your computer, on your own server, or on private infrastructure (VPC or on-premises)
    Price
    Personal license: $390 once. Company: $490 per seat, sold in packs of 5. Both include 12 months of upgrades. No free version.
    The catch
    No user accounts or project management; its docs say it leaves that kind of feature out on purpose.
  15. 15

    SuperAnnotate

    SuperAnnotate · Commercial

    5/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation, Rotated box · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    In the vendor's cloud
    Price
    No prices printed: Starter, Pro and Enterprise all go through a demo request. No free plan is listed.
    The catch
    Cloud only, and labels export as SuperAnnotate JSON, JSONL or CSV; COCO needs its Python SDK converter.
  16. 16

    V7 Darwin

    V7 · Commercial

    5/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    In the vendor's cloud
    Price
    Custom yearly quote: a platform fee plus user licenses plus data processing. The Darwin site mentions a free tier but prints no limits.
    The catch
    Its COCO, YOLO, Pascal VOC and CVAT XML exports don't carry video labels; only Darwin JSON covers every annotation type.
  17. 17

    Xtreme1

    BasicAI (open-source project) · Open source (Apache-2.0)

    5/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation
    Runs
    On your own serverLast release Sep 28, 2026
    Price
    Free and open source (Apache-2.0), self-hosted with Docker.
    The catch
    The built-in pre-labeling models need a Linux server with an NVIDIA GPU, and releases paused from April 2024 until September 2026.
  18. 18

    Labelbox

    Labelbox, Inc. · Commercial

    5/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints, Segmentation · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    In the vendor's cloud
    Price
    Free plan: 500 Labelbox Units (LBU) a month, up to 30 users. Starter: $0.10 per LBU, and a labeled image costs 1 LBU. Enterprise: by quote. Prices come from its docs; labelbox.com/pricing returned a 404 on Nov 8, 2026.
    The catch
    Cloud only, with data stored in the US; Labelbox retired its on-premise version, moving the last customers off by August 2023, and labels export as Labelbox JSON.
  19. 19

    VisionRepo

    Averroes · Cloud service

    5/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Keypoints, Segmentation · SAM-based assist
    Runs
    In the vendor's cloud
    Price
    Free: $0, one seat, one project, 2 GB. Pro: $20 a month for 3 seats. Ultra: $200 a month for 7 seats.
    The catch
    Labeling itself is metered: every label you create or remove counts against a daily quota that depends on the plan.
  20. 20

    Make Sense

    Piotr Skalski (open-source project) · Open source (GPL-3.0)

    5/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Polyline, Keypoints
    Runs
    On your computer or on your own serverLast release Dec 20, 2022
    Price
    Free and open source (GPL-3.0); runs in the browser.
    The catch
    No changes to its main branch since December 2023 and no release since a 2022 alpha, though the project isn't archived.
  21. 21

    VGG Image Annotator (VIA)

    Visual Geometry Group (VGG), University of Oxford · Open source (BSD-2-Clause)

    4/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon, Keypoints
    Runs
    On your computer
    Price
    Free under the two-clause BSD license, for academic and commercial use.
    The catch
    No AI-assisted labeling, and features are split: VIA2 handles images only, VIA3 adds video, audio and shared projects.
  22. 22

    PixLab Annotate

    PixLab (Symisc Systems, SUARL) · Free web tool

    3/8 checks

    Draws
    Box, Polygon
    Runs
    On your computer
    Price
    Free, no account needed.
    The catch
    Work in progress lives in browser storage, there's no AI assist, and the only export is PixLab's own JSON, one file per image.

Image annotation software by label type

Image annotation software is easiest to compare by the label types it can draw, because a detection project and a segmentation project need different tools. The table reads each tool's documented label types; a "No" means its docs don't list that type, not that it can't be worked around.

Image label types listed in each tool's docs, read Nov 8, 2026
ToolBoxPolygonPolylineKeypointsSegmentationRotated box
CVATYesYesYesYesYesYes
Label StudioYesYesNoYesYesYes
LabellerrYesYesYesYesYesNo
BasicAIYesYesYesYesYesNo
SuperviselyYesYesNoYesYesNo
Kili TechnologyYesYesYesYesYesNo
RoboflowYesYesNoYesYesNo
EncordYesYesYesYesYesYes
X-AnyLabelingYesYesYesYesYesYes
DataloopYesYesYesYesYesNo
LabelmeYesYesYesYesYesYes
Segments.aiYesYesYesYesYesNo
doccanoYesNoNoNoYesNo
ProdigyYesYesNoNoNoNo
SuperAnnotateYesYesYesYesYesYes
V7 DarwinYesYesYesYesYesNo
Xtreme1YesYesYesYesYesNo
LabelboxYesYesYesYesYesNo
VisionRepoYesYesNoYesYesNo
Make SenseYesYesYesYesNoNo
VGG Image Annotator (VIA)YesYesNoYesNoNo
PixLab AnnotateYesYesNoNoNoNo

Boxes and polygons are nearly universal. The gaps show up in keypoints for pose, rotated boxes for aerial and document images, and 3D cuboids, which only a few image tools draw; for objects that move, see our video annotation tools.

Free image annotation tools

Free image annotation tools range from apps that run on one computer to open-source servers a whole team can share.

  • VGG Image Annotator runs offline from a single HTML file under a two-clause BSD license, with no install and no account.
  • Make Sense runs in the browser and keeps images on your machine, though its code hasn't changed since December 2023.
  • PixLab Annotate draws boxes and polygons in the browser with no sign-up and exports PixLab's own JSON.
  • Labelme and X-AnyLabeling are open-source desktop apps; X-AnyLabeling bundles SAM and YOLO models, and Labelme sells a paid app with YOLO export.
  • CVAT and Label Studio have free self-hosted editions for teams, under the MIT and Apache-2.0 licenses.

Hosted free plans exist too: CVAT Online's free plan, Roboflow's Free Tier, VisionRepo Free and Supervisely Community all let you label images without paying, within storage and usage limits.

Online image annotation tools with nothing to install

Online image annotation tools that run in the browser fall into two groups. VGG Image Annotator, Make Sense and PixLab Annotate run in the page and keep your images on your own computer, which suits private or one-off jobs. CVAT Online, Roboflow, VisionRepo, Labelbox and the other hosted platforms run in the vendor's cloud and add shared projects and review, and some, such as Labelbox, can read images from your own cloud storage instead of keeping copies.

Computer vision annotation tools for teams

Computer vision annotation tools for teams add review queues, quality checks and storage connections to the drawing tools. CVAT offers manual review, ground-truth jobs, honeypots and consensus between labelers; V7 Darwin runs review stages and consensus stages with an overlap threshold per class; Kili Technology adds multi-step review with honeypots; and Supervisely runs consensus with two to four labelers per item on its Pro and Enterprise plans.

COCO and YOLO export in image annotation tools

COCO and YOLO export decide whether labels drop straight into your training code: the COCO format stores every image's boxes, polygons and keypoints in one JSON file, while YOLO writes one text file per image. CVAT exports COCO, Pascal VOC, YOLO and several Ultralytics YOLO formats, and Roboflow lists more than ten formats from COCO JSON to YOLOv11 and PaliGemma. Other tools are narrower: Labelbox exports its own JSON, SuperAnnotate needs its Python SDK to produce COCO, V7 Darwin's COCO export covers boxes and polygons only, and Labelme's free package saves Labelme JSON, with YOLO export in its paid app.

Image annotation tools FAQ

These image annotation tools FAQ answers draw on the same docs and pricing pages as the list.

What is the best tool for image annotation?

The best tool for image annotation depends on where you work. For a free team server, CVAT and Label Studio pass all 8 of our documented checks; for one computer with nothing to install, VGG Image Annotator; and for a hosted platform that also trains models, Roboflow.

Is there a free image annotation tool?

Yes, there are several free image annotation tools: VGG Image Annotator, Make Sense, PixLab Annotate, Labelme and X-AnyLabeling cost nothing, and CVAT and Label Studio have free self-hosted editions.

What is image annotation?

Image annotation is adding labels to images so a computer vision model can learn from them. The label can be a category for the whole image, a box around each object, an outline or mask that follows its edges, or keypoints that mark parts such as joints.

Which image annotation tools export YOLO format?

Image annotation tools that list YOLO export include CVAT, Roboflow, Label Studio, Encord, Kili Technology, Labellerr, Dataloop, Supervisely, Segments.ai, BasicAI, V7 Darwin, Make Sense and X-AnyLabeling. For Labelme, YOLO export is part of the paid app.

Can AI annotate images automatically?

AI can annotate images automatically as a first pass: a detector proposes boxes or a segmenter such as SAM turns a click into an outline, and a person then corrects them. 15 of the tools on this site document a SAM-based assist.

Sources for this comparison

The sources for this comparison are the tools' own pages: 302 pages from 22 tools, read on Nov 8, 2026. They are listed as plain text, because we link a tool only when it gives us a referral link we disclose.

Show the 302 source pages
  • CVAT: api.github.com/repos/cvat-ai/cvat/releases/latest, cvat.ai/resources/changelog/2026-09-24, docs.cvat.ai/docs/annotation/audio-editor, docs.cvat.ai/docs/annotation/manual-annotation/modes/3d-object-annotation, raw.githubusercontent.com/cvat-ai/cvat/develop/README.md, cvat.ai/pricing/cvat-online and 9 more
  • Label Studio: labelstud.io, api.github.com/repos/HumanSignal/label-studio, api.github.com/repos/HumanSignal/label-studio/releases/latest, labelstud.io/guide/label_studio_compare, raw.githubusercontent.com/HumanSignal/label-studio/develop/README.md, humansignal.com/pricing and 4 more
  • Labellerr: labellerr.com/pricing, docs.labellerr.com/changelog.md, docs.labellerr.com/product-releases/september-2026.md, labellerr.com/faq, labellerr.com/enterprise, docs.labellerr.com/getting-started/introduction.md and 24 more
  • BasicAI: basic.ai/basicai-data-annotation-platform/pricing, docs.basic.ai/docs/subscription.md, docs.basic.ai/changelog, basic.ai, docs.basic.ai/docs/gen-ai.md, docs.basic.ai/docs/class.md and 9 more
  • Supervisely: supervisely.com/pricing, supervisely.com/security, supervisely.com/platform, supervisely.com/ai-assisted-labeling, supervisely.com, supervisely.com/labeling-workflow and 1 more
  • Kili Technology: kili-technology.com/pricing, docs.kili-technology.com/changelog/november-4th-2026.md, kili-technology.com, docs.kili-technology.com/docs/labeling-audio-assets.md, docs.kili-technology.com/docs/labeling-llm-data.md, docs.kili-technology.com/docs/hosting.md and 29 more
  • Roboflow: docs.roboflow.com/platform/billing-and-plans/plans.md, roboflow.com/annotate, docs.roboflow.com/datasets/annotate/annotate/annotation-tools.md, docs.roboflow.com/datasets/annotate/annotate/annotate-video-segments.md, docs.roboflow.com/datasets/annotate/annotate/ai-labeling.md, docs.roboflow.com/datasets/annotate/annotate/ai-labeling/smart-select.md and 8 more
  • Encord: encord.com/pricing, docs.encord.com/release-notes/releasenotes-2026.md, docs.encord.com/platform-documentation/Other/deployment-options.md, docs.encord.com/platform-documentation/General/general-supported-data.md, docs.encord.com/platform-documentation/Annotate/annotate-ontologies/annotate-ontologies.md, docs.encord.com/platform-documentation/Annotate/automated-labeling/annotate-sam.md and 11 more
  • X-AnyLabeling: api.github.com/repos/CVHub520/X-AnyLabeling, api.github.com/repos/CVHub520/X-AnyLabeling/releases/latest, raw.githubusercontent.com/CVHub520/X-AnyLabeling/main/README.md, xanylabeling.com
  • Dataloop: docs.dataloop.ai/docs/platform-release-notes.md, dataloop.ai, dataloop.ai/platform, docs.dataloop.ai/docs/home.md, dataloop.ai/solutions/data-annotation, docs.dataloop.ai/docs/data-annotation-overview.md and 24 more
  • Labelme: labelme.io/docs/install-labelme-app, api.github.com/repos/wkentaro/labelme, api.github.com/repos/wkentaro/labelme/releases/latest, raw.githubusercontent.com/wkentaro/labelme/main/README.md, labelme.io, labelme.io/pricing
  • Segments.ai: segments.ai/pricing, docs.segments.ai/reference/sample-types.md, segments.ai/data-labeling/multi-sensor, segments.ai/data-labeling/3d-point-cloud, docs.segments.ai/reference/label-types.md, docs.segments.ai and 6 more
  • doccano: raw.githubusercontent.com/doccano/doccano/master/README.md, api.github.com/repos/doccano/doccano/releases/latest, api.github.com/repos/doccano/doccano, raw.githubusercontent.com/doccano/doccano/master/backend/projects/models.py, doccano.github.io/doccano/advanced/auto_labelling_config, raw.githubusercontent.com/doccano/doccano/master/backend/config/settings/base.py and 5 more
  • Prodigy: prodi.gy/docs/changelog, prodi.gy/docs, prodi.gy/buy, prodi.gy/docs/install, prodi.gy/docs/deployment, prodi.gy/docs/recipes and 3 more
  • SuperAnnotate: doc.superannotate.com/changelog/october-11-2026, doc.superannotate.com/docs/faq-data, trust.superannotate.com, superannotate.com/blog/superannotate-nvidia-enterprise-ai-reference-architecture, superannotate.com/pricing, superannotateai.github.io/custom-tools-docs and 15 more
  • V7 Darwin: v7darwin.com/changelog/audio-annotations, trust.v7labs.com, v7darwin.com/changelog, v7darwin.com/pricing, v7labs.com/pricing, v7darwin.com/security and 17 more
  • Xtreme1: api.github.com/repos/xtreme1-io/xtreme1/releases/latest, api.github.com/repos/xtreme1-io/xtreme1/releases?per_page=5, api.github.com/repos/xtreme1-io/xtreme1/commits?per_page=3, docs.xtreme1.io/xtreme1-docs, raw.githubusercontent.com/xtreme1-io/xtreme1/main/README.md, docs.xtreme1.io/xtreme1-docs/export-data.md and 1 more
  • Labelbox: docs.labelbox.com/horizon/release-notes.md, labelbox.com, docs.labelbox.com/llms.txt, labelbox.com/products/horizon, docs.labelbox.com/horizon/guides/deprecations.md, docs.labelbox.com/horizon/guides/image-editor.md and 18 more
  • VisionRepo: averroes.ai/visionrepo/pricing, averroes.ai/visionrepo, averroes.ai/deployment
  • Make Sense: raw.githubusercontent.com/SkalskiP/make-sense/develop/README.md, api.github.com/repos/SkalskiP/make-sense, api.github.com/repos/SkalskiP/make-sense/commits?sha=develop&per_page=1, api.github.com/repos/SkalskiP/make-sense/releases/latest, makesense.ai, skalskip.github.io/make-sense
  • VGG Image Annotator (VIA): robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/software/via, gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/vgg%2Fvia
  • PixLab Annotate: pixlab.io/annotate