Sightengine
Sightengine provides APIs for assessing and moderating images, videos, and text.
What Sightengine is
Sightengine provides APIs for assessing and moderating images, videos, and text. Its visual moderation checks for content such as nudity, hate, violence, drugs, weapons, and self-harm, while additional tools detect AI-generated images, video, speech, and music, along with deepfakes. The service also offers OCR and QR moderation, image and video search, age estimation, liveness checks, and recapture detection. Developers can configure image moderation thresholds and rules for different community policies, and use examples and SDKs for Curl, Python, PHP, and Node.js. Sightengine says customer content is not shared with third parties and no human moderator is involved. Its Free plan costs nothing and has daily and monthly usage limits, with no video processing or live-stream support. Starter costs $29 a month, billed for 10,000 operations monthly, with additional operations at $0.002 each. The product is available via API and web, with cloud deployment.
Good
- Moderates text, images, audio, and video.
- Detects deepfakes and AI-generated media.
- Offers configurable image moderation rules.
- SDKs include Curl, Python, PHP, and Node.js.
- Free plan available.
Watch out
- Free plan has daily and monthly usage limits.
- Free plan excludes video processing and live streams.
- Starter charges $0.002 for each operation above its monthly allowance.
- No human review workflow.
Who it suits
Sightengine suits developers and businesses that need automated content checks for social networks, messaging apps, or marketplaces. Its configurable moderation rules can suit communities with different policies.
Verdict
Sightengine offers a broad set of automated moderation and detection checks through APIs. Check plan limits and support levels against expected use, especially for video and live moderation.
Plans and prices
From Sightengine's own pricing page, checked 15 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | No time limit · 1 req/s · online documentation support |
| Starter | $29 a month | 10,000 operations/month · $0.002 per additional operation · 50MB maximum video · no live-stream support · 1 req/s · monthly |
| Pro | $99 a month | 40,000 operations/month · $0.002 per additional operation · 500MB maximum video · live-stream moderation · audio moderation · 5 concurrent video jobs · 10 custom lists · 10 req/s · monthly |
| Enterprise | Priced on request | Custom operation volume · custom models/classes · geo-fencing · enterprise SLA · dedicated support engineer |
The facts
Each one read from Sightengine's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Additional checks
- Sightengine offers OCR and QR moderation, image and video search, age estimation, liveness checks and recapture detection.checked 29 Sep 2026
- AI-content detection
- The product includes AI-generated image, video, speech and music detection as well as deepfake detection.checked 15 Oct 2026
- AI detection
- The product includes detection for AI-generated images, videos, speech and music, as well as deepfakes.checked 29 Sep 2026
- API and authentication
- The API uses an API user and API secret key pair and accepts uploaded media or public URLs.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Callbacks
- Asynchronous jobs POST status and detection events to a customer callback URL, and documentation recommends acknowledging quickly with a 2xx response.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Changelog: 2026 additions
- The changelog records named API secrets in August 2026, AI speech detection in June 2026, and face-liveness detection in March 2026.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Custom lists
- Customers can create allow or disallow lists for text and image/video matching and reference list IDs in API requests.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Custom rules
- Image moderation thresholds and rules can be configured to match different community policies.checked 29 Sep 2026
- Custom workflows
- Dashboard workflows let customers define rules and ACCEPT or REJECT actions, then submit media with a workflow ID.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Enterprise security
- SAML single sign-on and region-specific end-user data processing are available on Enterprise plans.checked 29 Sep 2026
- Face and identity
- Available models include face analysis, minor and age estimation, people counting and face-liveness detection.checked 15 Oct 2026
- GDPR
- Sightengine states it complies with GDPR and lets Enterprise customers choose the processing region.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Image moderation
- The image API accepts JPG, PNG, WebP and animated GIF files and returns moderation scores immediately.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Infrastructure
- Its data-center partners are described as ISO 27001, SOC 2 and PCI DSS compliant.checked 29 Sep 2026
- Integrations
- The site provides API examples and SDKs for Curl, Python, PHP and Node.js.checked 29 Sep 2026
- Limit: automated decisions
- Challenging Voice warns that classifiers can produce false positives and false negatives and that customers still need a human appeal path.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: G2 review relevance
- The sole G2 review discusses solar-project proposal software, shading calculations and project management, indicating the listing may be confused with Sighten rather than Sightengine.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: sales responsiveness
- Both Trustpilot reviews are one-star complaints that sales did not respond to enterprise or partnership inquiries.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Moderation
- Its visual moderation covers categories including nudity, hate, violence, drugs, weapons and self-harm.checked 29 Sep 2026
The company
- Company founding year
- Crunchbase displays the founding field as obfuscated, so no founding year is publicly stated on that page.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Company headquarters and size
- LinkedIn lists Paris headquarters and a company size of 2–10 employees.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Company legal name
- Crunchbase identifies the legal name as Sightengine and operating status as active.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Headquarters
- Sightengine says it is headquartered in Paris, France.checked 29 Sep 2026
Money
- Limit: cost predictability
- Conversion Gems says operation multipliers and overage billing can make costs difficult to forecast at scale.checked 15 Oct 2026
Alternatives to Sightengine
- 1
PlayFab
Free planAndroidiOSWebAPI8.3$99 usage-based - 2
WebPurify
Free planAndroidiOSWebAPI7.4From $5 a month - 3
Threadmodo
Free planWeb7.3$29.99 usage-based - 4
Fren One
Free planWeb7.2From $2,500 a month - 5
Smart Moderation
iOSWebAPI7.1From $99 a month - 6
Hive Moderation
Free planWebAPIExtension6.9Free plan