CVAT review
CVAT is an open-source computer vision labeling tool, and self-hosting it costs nothing; you can also pick a cloud version or a labeling service.
- Source code is open
- That's MIT, yes
- Where it runs
- Cloud, air-gapped or self-host
- Price
- The Team plan is $23 to $33 per user each month; a free plan is available
- A free option
- A free plan plus a free self-hosted edition
- File types
- Audio, Video, 3D laser scans (LiDAR), Photos
- Laws and audits it names
- GDPR, CCPA
- Workforce for labeling
- 300+ annotators behind the labeling services
Sources: cvat.ai home page · github.com, cvat page · cvat.ai, cloud page
Two things to know about CVAT
- CVAT includes built-in quality checks: honeypots, consensus and ground truth.
- Your exports can use more than 20 formats, including Pascal VOC, COCO, YOLO and others.
What CVAT offers as an annotation tool
- Audio, images, video and 3D point clouds (.pcd/.bin)
- Labeling gets AI assistance from custom models plus sAM 2, SAM 3, Ultralytics, Hugging Face
- Built-in SAM auto-labeling, part of the AI labeling help, comes only with paid Online/Enterprise; Community users deploy Nuclio models themselves
CVAT and similar platforms
| Platform | Source code is open | Where it runs | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVATThis page | That's MIT, yes | Cloud, air-gapped or self-host | The Team plan is $23 to $33 per user each month; a free plan is available |
 Labelbox | No | Cloud | Not published |
 Encord | No | Cloud, VPC or on-premises (Enterprise) | Plans on request: Starter, Team and Enterprise |
 V7 Darwin | No | Cloud or your private cloud | Paid plans on request; free tier |
 SuperAnnotate | No | Cloud | Plans on request: Starter, Pro and Enterprise |
Every option side by side · comparing open-source tools
Taking boxes from one tool to another? Do it in your browser. Convert COCO, YOLO, Pascal VOC and CVAT boxes.
Labeling services for the files CVAT handles
What to ask CVAT before you sign
- Which data types and label tools come with the plan we would buy?
- Can we export every label in our own format if we leave?
- Does the plan include model-assisted labeling, or is that an extra cost?
- Can you also supply a labeling team, or do we bring our own?
Would you rather have people do the labeling for you? Describe the job once and three annotation companies reply.
Send a brief to three companies