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WildObserve™

Camera-trap software compared

WildObserve™, Timelapse, AddaxAI, Wildlife Insights, and AIDE, side by side.

WildObserve™, Timelapse, and AddaxAI run on your own computer. Wildlife Insights is a cloud platform you upload images to, and AIDE is a web app you install on your own server. They differ most in where your images go, whether the AI learns your project's species, and what analysis is built in.

Every entry for another tool comes from its own website or documentation, linked under Sources. A dash (—) means its documentation doesn't say. Last checked November 12, 2026. If something here is wrong or out of date, email info@qsc.earth and we'll correct it.

Feature WildObserve™ Timelapse AddaxAI Wildlife Insights AIDE
What it is Desktop app Windows desktop app Desktop app Web platform in the cloud Web app you install on your own server
Where your images go They stay on your computer Its data stays in files on your computer or a file share; no internet needed to run it They stay on your computer; nothing is uploaded Uploaded to the cloud (Google Cloud Platform). A project can stay private for up to 48 months; sharing publicly is encouraged —
Cost Free Community plan (non-commercial use); paid plans $399 to $5,995 a year (Plans) Free; commercial use by arrangement with its developer Free (some species models are for non-commercial use only) Free for most users; government organizations and companies pay a subscription Free (open source)
Runs on Mac (Apple silicon), Windows 10 or later, Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 or later) Windows only (on a Mac, through a Windows emulator) Windows, Mac (Apple silicon), Linux A web browser; uploading needs an internet connection A Linux server (an Ubuntu installer, in beta, or Docker), used through a web browser
Finds animals MegaDetector, built in Doesn't detect animals itself; imports results from other software, such as AddaxAI MegaDetector, built in AI filters out blank images No MegaDetector; general detection models, such as Faster R-CNN and RetinaNet, that you train
Suggests species SpeciesNet, then your Project Model Doesn't classify itself; imports classifications from other software, such as AddaxAI A choice of species models: SpeciesNet, DeepFaune, and regional models Yes, with its own AI model —
Learns your project's species as you review Yes: a Project Model trains on your computer as you label (in 3 projects on the free plan) — No: its documentation says checking results doesn't teach the model — Yes: it trains a model on your annotations and uses it to make predictions and to choose the next images to label (active learning)
Reviewing images A review screen with capture events, box editing, and keyboard shortcuts Data entry in fields you define in a template, with an overview grid for tagging many images at once Checks and relabels results in the app; can also export them to Timelapse Review and edit the AI's identifications Labeling with image labels, points, bounding boxes, or segmentation masks
Occupancy and abundance estimates Built in: occupancy, Royle–Nichols abundance, and site covariates, plus a list that picks which images to review for occupancy — Not built in; for occupancy, you export your data to R, such as camtrapR Built-in species and community analytics; occupancy not specified —
Exports CSV, Camtrap DP, Wildlife Insights bulk upload, COCO, COCO Camera Traps, YOLO, MegaDetector results, and tables for R CSV, Camtrap DP CSV or TSV, XLSX, Camtrap DP, MegaDetector-format results (for Timelapse), and GIS point layers CSV files (projects, cameras, deployments, images, and sequences) —
Setting it up An installer; no code, and no graphics card needed A standard Windows application; no server An installer; no code, and a graphics card is optional Runs in a web browser Server setup from the command line, or Docker; a graphics card is strongly recommended for training
Open source No Source on GitHub, under a non-commercial license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Yes (MIT license) — Yes (MIT license)
Several people An account for each reviewer; projects shared across computers on the Lab and Organization plans A shared database on a network drive, or parts checked out to each person and merged back Work split by deployment, exported and imported between computers Organization and project roles for teams —

A dash (—) means the tool's own documentation doesn't say.

Which one fits

  • WildObserve™, if you want your images to stay on your computer, a Project Model that learns your project's species as you review, and occupancy and abundance estimates in the same app, on Mac, Windows, or Linux. Having a Project Model in more than 3 projects simultaneously requires a paid plan.
  • Timelapse, if you work on Windows and want free, flexible data entry with fields you design, and you're happy to run detection and classification in other software, such as AddaxAI, and import the results.
  • AddaxAI, if you want a free, open-source app that runs MegaDetector and a choice of regional species models on your own computer. For occupancy, you export your data to R.
  • Wildlife Insights, if you want your images hosted online, with team roles, built-in analytics, and a way to share data publicly. Images are uploaded to the cloud; it's free for most users, and government organizations and companies pay a subscription.
  • AIDE, if you can run a server and want an open-source, web-based labeling tool that trains a model on your annotations as you label. Its built-in models are general-purpose ones that you train, not camera-trap models such as MegaDetector.

Download WildObserve™