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Best Object Detection APIs in 2023

What is Object Detection API?

Object Detection is a computer vision technology that enables users to locate and classify different objects such as people, animals, vehicles, etc. within an image or a video. Using deep learning models to analyze visual content and identify objects in real time, the API provides a powerful tool for a wide range of applications.

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This technology is now widely used in industries such as retail, security, healthcare, and has become a crucial component of autonomous vehicles and robotics.

Object Detection APIs uses cases

You can use Object Detection in numerous fields, here are some examples of common use cases:

  • Retail: track and analyze customer behavior in stores, including foot traffic, product interactions, and purchasing patterns. This information can be used to optimize store layouts, product placement, and to personalize customer experiences.
  • Security: detect and track people and vehicles in public spaces, including airports, stadiums, and train stations
  • Healthcare: identify and track medical equipment and supplies in hospitals, reducing the risk of loss or theft. It can also be used for medical image analysis, such as detecting tumors and other abnormalities in X-rays and MRIs.
  • Manufacturing: monitor production lines, find defects in products, and optimize assembly processes. It can also be used for quality control, ensuring that products meet specified standards and requirements.
  • Autonomous vehicles and robotics: allow self-driving cars and robots to navigate and interact with the environment in real time. It can also be used to detect and avoid obstacles; to identify and track other vehicles and pedestrians.

These are just a few examples of Object Detection API uses case, it can be used in almost any field to enable real-time object recognition and provide valuable insights.

Best Object Detection APIs on the market

While comparing Object Detection APIs, it is crucial to consider different aspects, among others, cost security and privacy. Object Detection experts at Eden AI tested, compared, and used many Object Detection APIs of the market. Here are some actors that perform well (in alphabetical order):

  • AWS
  • api4ai
  • Clarifai
  • Google Cloud
  • Hive AI
  • Imagga
  • Microsoft Azure
  • SentiSight.ai
  • Visua AI

1. AWS - Available on Eden AI

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AWS provides two powerful and efficient object detection algorithms, namely MXNet and TensorFlow.  Both algorithms are designed to provide accurate and efficient detection with easy-to-use APIs.

The MXNet algorithm is a supervised learning algorithm that uses a deep neural network to detect and classify objects in images. It identifies all instances of objects within an image scene, categorizes them into one of the classes in a specified collection, and indicates their location and scale in the image using a rectangular bounding box.

The TensorFlow algorithm, on the other hand, supports transfer learning with many pretrained models from the TensorFlow Model Garden. It allows you to fine-tune the available pre-trained models on your own dataset, even if you don't have a large amount of image data.

2. api4ai - Available on Eden AI

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API4AI uses advanced image analysis algorithms to detect and classify multiple objects within an image. The API offers accurate and efficient detection by providing coordinates for bounding boxes around each object, along with the most probable class and confidence level for each object. What sets API4AI apart is the dedication to using the best machine learning practices and thorough testing processes to ensure optimal performance. With its robust object detection capabilities and emphasis on accuracy and reliability, API4AI is a valuable tool for businesses looking to enhance their image analysis capabilities.

3. Clarifai - Available on Eden AI

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Clarifai provides an API that allows developers to easily integrate computer vision capabilities into their applications. With Clarifai, users can detect and identify objects within images and videos, as well as classify them into pre-defined categories. Clarifai's solution is known for its accuracy and speed, thanks to their deep learning models and GPU acceleration. Additionally, Clarifai's API is highly customizable, allowing developers to train their own models and tailor the API to their specific use case.

4. Google Cloud - Available on Eden AI

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Google Cloud's Vision API provides a powerful object detection solution that can detect and extract multiple objects within an image using object localization. The API uses advanced algorithms to identify both prominent and less-prominent objects in an image, and provides a Localized Object Annotation for each object that includes information about its position and rectangular bounds within the image. Additionally, the Vision API offers a user-friendly interface and a wide range of customization options, making it a versatile solution for businesses of all sizes.

5. Hive AI

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Hive AI's solution provides accurate and reliable detection within images and videos, delivering the geometric description of bounding boxes, predicted class, and confidence score for each detection. Additionally, Hive's API can detect multiple objects of different classes per image. For videos, Hive's backend splits videos into frames and runs the model on each frame to provide accurate results for the entire video.

6. Imagga

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Imagga's Object Detection API is an advanced computer vision technology that automatically assigns relevant tags or keywords to vast collections of images and videos. It uses a deep learning model that analyzes the pixel content of visuals, extracts their features, and detects objects of interest. With over 3000 objects from daily life already trained, Imagga's API can be additionally trained with customer-specific tags for utmost precision.

7. Microsoft Azure - Available on Eden AI

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Microsoft Azure’s API works by identifying and returning bounding box coordinates for each object found in an image. It can detect multiple instances of the same object, allowing for better understanding of relationships between objects in an image. The API applies tags based on the objects or living things identified in the image, which is useful for processing large volumes of images quickly.

8. SentiSight.ai - Available on Eden AI

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Sentisight.ai provides a state-of-the-art object detection API that leverages advanced machine learning algorithms to accurately identify and classify objects within images and videos. Using SentiSight.ai, users can easily build their own object detection models, making it an ideal platform for a wide range of industries and sectors.

What sets SentiSight.ai apart is its intuitive and user-friendly interface, designed to cater to both beginners and experts in the field. Moreover, advanced features are available for users who require more fine-grained control over their models. These features include the ability to view learning curves and precision-recall curves, set score thresholds for individual classes, choose the model size, customize the validation set, and even utilize unlabeled images as negative samples.

9. Visua AI

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Visua AI provides a high-performance object detection API that can extract relevant insights from the detected object (scene, concept, type). Their Visual Classification tool offers deep semantic metadata and a unique hierarchical tagging library for actionable insights and precise categorization. By seamlessly integrating with their logo detection module, Visua AI enables brand-specific and cross-brand analysis. With Visua AI, businesses can derive meaningful insights, deliver unprecedented classification levels, and enhance the value of their platforms.

Try these APIs on Eden AI

Performance variations of Object Detection APIs

For all companies who use Object Detection in their software: cost and performance are real concerns. The Object Detection market is quite dense and all those providers have their benefits and weaknesses.

Performances of Object Detection vary according to the specificity of data used by each AI engine for their model training, not all APIs will provide the same result with the same facial feature analysis. The performance can also vary according to the quality of the image/video or lighting condition.

Bear in mind that if the user has very specific data, not all provider's engines will be able to process images accurately. If you have customers coming from different fields, you must consider this detail and optimize your choice of provider.

Why choose Eden AI to manage your Object Detection APIs

‍Companies and developers from a wide range of industries (Social Media, Retail, Health, Finances, Law, etc.) use Eden AI’s unique API to easily integrate Object Detection tasks in their cloud-based applications, without having to build their own solutions.

Eden AI offers multiple AI APIs on its platform amongst several technologies: Text-to-Speech, Machine Translation, Sentiment Analysis, Logo Detection, Question Answering, Data Anonymization, Speech Recognition, and so forth.

We want our users to have access to multiple Object Detection engines and manage them in one place so they can reach high performance, optimize cost and cover all their needs. There are many reasons for using multiple APIs:

  • Fallback provider is the ABCs: You need to set up a provider API that is requested if and only if the main Object Detection API does not perform well (or is down). You can use confidence score returned or other methods to check provider accuracy.
  • Performance optimization: After the testing phase, you will be able to build a mapping of providers’ performance based on the criteria you have chosen (languages, fields, etc.). Each data that you need to process will then be sent to the best Object Detection API.
  • Cost - Performance ratio optimization: You can choose the cheapest Object Detection that performs well for your data.
  • Combine multiple AI APIs: This approach is required if you look for extremely high accuracy. The combination leads to higher costs but allows your AI service to be safe and accurate because Object Detection APIs will validate and invalidate each other for each piece of data.

How Eden AI can help you?

Eden AI is the future of AI usage in companies: our app allows you to call multiple AI APIs.

Multiple AIs in one API - Eden AI

  • Centralized and fully monitored billing on Eden AI for all Object Detection APIs
  • Unified API for all providers: simple and standard to use, quick switch between providers, access to the specific features of each provider
  • Standardized response format: the JSON output format is the same for all suppliers thanks to Eden AI's standardization work. The response elements are also standardized thanks to Eden AI's powerful matching algorithms.
  • The best Artificial Intelligence APIs in the market are available: big cloud providers (Google, AWS, Microsoft, and more specialized engines)
  • Data protection: Eden AI will not store or use any data. Possibility to filter to use only GDPR engines.

You can see Eden AI documentation here.

Next step in your project

The Eden AI team can help you with your Object Detection integration project. This can be done by :

  • Organizing a product demo and a discussion to better understand your needs. You can book a time slot on this link: Contact
  • By testing the public version of Eden AI for free: however, not all providers are available on this version. Some are only available on the Enterprise version.
  • By benefiting from the support and advice of a team of experts to find the optimal combination of providers according to the specifics of your needs
  • Having the possibility to integrate on a third-party platform: we can quickly develop connectors.

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