Side by side

LightlyStudio vs Potato

Both stand on active learning tools. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.

LightlyStudio

Free plan Open source APILinuxMac+3

LightlyStudio brings dataset curation, annotation, evaluation, and management together, with both GUI and Python API workflows. The open-source plan omits customer support and team collaboration.

Visit LightlyStudio

Potato

Free plan APILinuxMac+3

Potato offers broad annotation and AI-assisted labeling options in a free, self-hosted package. It is a fit for users prepared to run and maintain it themselves; there is no managed cloud tier.

Visit Potato

The facts

	LightlyStudio	Potato
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Open source	Yes	Not published
Runs on	API, Linux, Mac, Self-hosted, Web, Windows	API, Linux, Mac, Self-hosted, Web, Windows
Lowest paid plan	Free or on request	Free or on request
Plans published	3	1
Maker	Not published	Not published
Website	lightly.ai	potatoannotator.com
On active learning tools	#1 of 16	#2 of 16

LightlyStudio: what it does well

Free open-source version uses Apache License 2.0.
Supports image and video annotation.
Exports full datasets or filtered subsets.
Python API can index and query datasets.
Local app supports Windows, Linux, and macOS.

What to know first

Open Source plan has no customer support.
Open Source plan has no team collaboration.
Local application requires Python 3.9 or later.

Potato: what it does well

Lists 61 annotation types across multiple media.
AI assistance includes suggestions, pre-annotation and consistency checks.
Imports and exports a range of data formats.
Runs locally or on users’ own servers, with offline use supported.
Free plan has all features and no usage limits.

What to know first

Self-hosted only; users must run it themselves.
No managed cloud tier.
Installation requires Python 3.7 or later.

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