Sightengine icon

Sightengine

Sightengine is an API platform for moderating and analyzing images, videos, text, and audio. Detect unsafe, synthetic, or policy-restricted content and act programmatically.

Sightengine

Content moderation and media analysis API

Sightengine is an API platform for content moderation and media analysis across images, videos, text, and audio. It is built for teams that need to detect unsafe, unwanted, or synthetic content and then take programmatic action inside their own products.

The product combines moderation models, OCR and QR handling, AI-generated media detection, visual search, and image analysis tools in one workflow. The documentation says you can choose the models you need, combine multiple models in a single API call, and receive JSON responses that include confidence scores for each model.

The site positions the service for scalable moderation pipelines, with plans that range from a free tier for testing to paid plans for larger usage. The pricing page also notes support for live moderation on higher plans and custom options for enterprise customers.

Core capabilities

Visual moderation models

Detect nudity, violence, weapons, hate symbols, gore, self-harm, drugs, alcohol, gambling, money, fire, military scenes, and religious content across images and videos. The moderation model set is designed for content safety and policy enforcement.

Text, OCR, and QR analysis

Detect profanity, personal information, embedded text, QR codes, and OCR text in images and videos. This supports moderation workflows where text is part of the media itself.

AI content detection

Identify AI-generated images and videos, deepfakes, and other synthetic media. The product also includes detection models for AI speech and AI music in the site navigation and documentation.

Near-duplicate and visual search

Find similar and nearly identical images or videos, and support custom disallow lists for abuse prevention. This is useful for spam control and duplicate-content review.

People and image analysis

Assess image quality, face visibility, liveness, age groups, face analysis, and profile image validity. These tools help teams validate identity-related and profile-image use cases.

Practical use cases

  • Trust and safety moderation

    Moderate user-uploaded images and videos for nudity, violence, weapons, hate symbols, self-harm, and other policy-restricted categories before they are published.

  • Text and embedded-content screening

    Scan posts, comments, captions, or OCR-extracted text for profanity, personal information, restricted activity, or links that violate platform rules.

  • Synthetic media detection

    Detect AI-generated images, AI videos, and deepfakes when authenticity matters, such as marketplaces, identity checks, or editorial review.

  • Spam and duplicate control

    Compare media against near-duplicate or custom disallow lists to reduce spam, repeated abuse, and circumvention attempts across uploads.

  • Profile and identity image checks

    Validate profile photos by checking face visibility, quality, liveness, age group, and other image properties before account creation or verification steps.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Covers multiple media types from one API surface, including image, video, text, and audio analysis.
  • Supports combined model requests, which can reduce the number of separate calls needed in a moderation pipeline.
  • Includes a free tier for testing and proof-of-concepts, plus clear upgrade paths for paid usage.
  • Provides both moderation and analysis tools, including AI detection, OCR, visual search, and face-related checks.
  • Documentation includes quick-start examples and code samples for common languages, which can shorten initial setup.

Cons

  • The collected material does not show full integration coverage such as webhook details or a complete SDK list.
  • Some capabilities depend on plan level; for example, live-stream moderation and larger video limits are only listed on higher-tier plans.
  • The source does not provide a single published quality benchmark or third-party comparison, so claims about relative accuracy should be read as product positioning rather than measured proof.

FAQ

How does Sightengine fit into a moderation workflow?

Sightengine provides API-based moderation for images, videos, text, and audio. The documentation says you can choose the models you need, send media to the API, and parse the JSON response to act on the returned confidence scores.

Does Sightengine offer a free tier or trial?

The pricing page shows a Free tier for testing and proof-of-concepts, plus paid Starter, Pro, and Enterprise plans. The free plan can be used indefinitely, and paid plans can be changed or canceled at the end of the current billing period.

Can I use more than one model in a single request?

Yes. The documentation says you can combine multiple detection models in a single API call for efficiency, which can simplify moderation and analysis pipelines.

What integration details are available from the source?

The source supports JSON-based API responses and includes example code for cURL, Python, PHP, and Node.js. It does not provide a complete list of SDKs or webhook options in the collected material.

Quick Facts

Category
Developer Tool
Product type
API platform for moderation and media analysis
Primary media
Images, videos, text, and audio
Website
sightengine.com
Pricing model
Free tier plus paid plans
Workflow
Choose models, send media, parse JSON results

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