Detector24 vs Sightengine
Sightengine and Detector24 are the same kind of product: an automated moderation API for images, video, text and audio, with AI-generated content and deepfake detection and no human reviewers in the loop. The differences are in the numbers. Sightengine publishes a free tier of 2,000 operations a month, 120+ visual classes and $0.002 per additional operation on its $29 and $99 plans. Detector24 publishes 100 free moderations a month, per-model prices with basic moderation from $0.00007 per check on higher-tier plans, and stated latency figures per modality.
Information last reviewed September 7, 2026. Compared: Detector24’s published plans against Sightengine’s Free, Starter, Pro and Enterprise plans as publicly listed on sightengine.com, in USD.
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Where Detector24 and Sightengine differ
Two published price lists, two shapes
Sightengine sells operations: 2,000 free a month, then $29 for 10,000 or $99 for 40,000 with $0.002 per additional operation, and a video frame, a 1,000-character text block or a 10-second audio chunk each count as one operation. Detector24 sells per-model, per-request pricing published on its pricing page, with basic content moderation from $0.00007 per check on higher-tier plans, from a $99 or $599 monthly minimum. Which is lower depends entirely on your mix and volume; run both calculators.
Sightengine lists more visual classes
Sightengine’s docs list 120+ moderation classes across nudity, violence, weapons, hate signs, gore, self-harm, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling and more, plus face, liveness, OCR and near-duplicate models. Detector24 states 25+ image categories including NSFW, violence and hate symbols. If you need a very fine-grained taxonomy out of the box, Sightengine publishes the longer list.
Latency figures, stated per modality
Under 150 ms for image moderation, under 100 ms for text, under 500 ms for video with sub-second live-stream checks, and under 300 ms for audio, as stated on each product page. Sightengine states images are “usually processed within a few hundreds of milliseconds”, heavier models such as text detection take “closer to 1 second” on standard plans, and text moderation has a 21 ms median processing time.
Who holds the certificate
Detector24 states AICPA SOC, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, CSA STAR Level One, GDPR-compliant handling. Sightengine states it uses “ISO27001, SOC2 and PCI DSS compliant data-center partners” and is GDPR-ready with a Data Processing Addendum; a SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certificate held by Sightengine itself is not stated in the materials we reviewed. Sightengine does publish something Detector24 does not: an independent university benchmark it cites for its AI-image detector.
Detector24 and Sightengine, side by side
| Attribute | Detector24 | Sightengine |
|---|---|---|
| Modalities | Image, video and live-stream, text and audio moderation, plus AI-generated image detection, deepfake detection, AI music and AI voice detection, and threat detection | Images, stored video and live streams, text and audio, plus AI image, AI video, deepfake, AI speech and AI music detection, per sightengine.com |
| Categories | Image moderation across 25+ categories including NSFW, violence and hate symbols; text moderation in 95+ languages with PII and threat detection | “120+ moderation classes” per its docs (the homepage says 150+), including nudity, violence, weapons, hate signs, gore, self-harm, drugs, alcohol, tobacco and gambling; text rules for profanity, PII, links and extremist references |
| Public pricing | Free tier with 100 moderations a month; Core from a $99 monthly minimum; Forensic from a $599 monthly minimum; per-model, per-request prices published on the pricing page, with basic content moderation from $0.00007 per check on higher-tier plans. No setup fees. | Free plan; Starter $29 a month for 10,000 operations; Pro $99 a month for 40,000; $0.002 per additional operation on both; Enterprise custom. Video counts one operation per analysed frame (default one frame every 2 seconds), text one per 1,000 characters, audio one per 10 seconds |
| Free tier | 100 free moderations a month on the free tier | 2,000 operations a month, maximum 500 a day |
| Stated speed | Under 150 ms for image moderation, under 100 ms for text, under 500 ms for video with sub-second live-stream checks, and under 300 ms for audio, as stated on each product page | “Usually processed within a few hundreds of milliseconds” for nudity detection; “closer to 1 second” for text detection on standard plans; 21 ms median for text moderation |
| Stated accuracy | 98.5% accuracy stated for image moderation on detector24.ai | “99.2% F1 accuracy on porn detection”; cites a September 2024 benchmark by researchers at the Universities of Kansas and Rochester giving its AI-image detector 98.3% accuracy on an 80,000-image set |
| Submitted content handling | No human reviewers in the loop; images are automatically deleted after analysis with no long-term storage; data residency options available | Customers can “have your end-user data deleted immediately upon processing”; a default retention period is not stated; training licence applies only to media submitted through its Feedback API; requests processed in EU, Canada or US regions by default, region pinning on Enterprise |
| Certifications stated | AICPA SOC, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, CSA STAR Level One, GDPR-compliant handling | “ISO27001, SOC2 and PCI DSS compliant data-center partners”; GDPR-ready with a DPA; TLS 1.3. A certificate held by Sightengine itself is not stated in the materials we reviewed |
| Human review and custom rules | None: fully automated, with per-model confidence thresholds you configure | No human reviewers in the loop; dashboard workflows with custom rules and actions; custom text lists; custom models and classes on Enterprise |
Third-party details on this page reflect what each provider publicly stated on the review date shown above and may have changed since. Statements about what Sightengine offers reflect its public materials on the review date; absence of a feature from those materials does not prove it is unavailable.
Where we agree with Sightengine: no humans should have to look
Sightengine’s FAQ says it plainly: an all-automated API with no human reviewers in the loop, and a hybrid process only where the customer chooses to route uncertain cases to their own team. Detector24 is built on the same principle. Both return a score, both let you set the threshold, and neither puts a stranger between your users and their uploads.
The two diverge on how they count and what they publish. Sightengine bills operations, which is elegant for a single-modality workload and needs a spreadsheet for a mixed one, because a video frame, a block of text and ten seconds of audio each cost one operation. Detector24 publishes a per-request price per model on its pricing page, so a video call and a text call are priced as what they are. Sightengine publishes a larger free tier and a longer class list; Detector24 publishes latency per modality and certifications held in its own name.
On evidence, Sightengine does something worth copying: it links an independent university benchmark of AI-image detectors on which it scored well, and it says in the same breath that no detector is 100% reliable. Detector24 states its own accuracy figure and does not cite a third-party test. If an outside measurement matters to your review, that is a point in Sightengine’s column.
Detector24 fits you if
- You want per-model, per-request prices rather than an operations budget shared across modalities
- Stated latency figures per modality matter to your integration
- You need threat detection and AI voice detection alongside moderation
- Certifications held in the provider’s own name, not its data-centre partners’, are what your security review asks for
Sightengine may fit you if
- You want a larger free tier: 2,000 operations a month against 100
- A published 120+ class taxonomy, with face, liveness and near-duplicate models, is what you need
- You want an independent benchmark you can cite for AI-image detection
- You need requests pinned to EU data centres by default
Common questions
For an automated moderation API with AI-generated content detection, yes; the two products have the same shape. Detector24 publishes per-model prices with basic moderation from $0.00007 per check on higher-tier plans and 100 free moderations a month on the free tier. Sightengine publishes a 2,000-operation free tier, $29 and $99 plans with $0.002 per additional operation, and a longer class list.
How we compared
This comparison is based on publicly available information from Sightengine’s official website, pricing page and documentation, and on Detector24’s own published pricing and features, as reviewed on September 7, 2026. Features, pricing and availability may change at any time. Please verify current details directly with each provider before purchasing.
Nothing on this page is legal advice. Which moderation setup satisfies the UK Online Safety Act, the EU Digital Services Act, US state laws or any platform policy depends on your service and your regulator’s guidance. Confirm your obligations with qualified counsel.
Sources
- Sightengine homepage (verified September 7, 2026)
- Sightengine pricing (verified September 7, 2026)
- Sightengine FAQ: what is an operation (verified September 7, 2026)
- Sightengine models documentation (verified September 7, 2026)
- Sightengine content moderation page (accuracy, SDKs, regions) (verified September 7, 2026)
- Sightengine FAQ: speed (verified September 7, 2026)
- Sightengine AI image detector benchmark page (verified September 7, 2026)
- Sightengine security page (verified September 7, 2026)
- Sightengine FAQ: data processing location (verified September 7, 2026)
- Sightengine FAQ: human moderation compared (verified September 7, 2026)
- Detector24 pricing (our own published claims) (verified September 7, 2026)
Detector24 is an independent service operated by Bynn Intelligence Inc. and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Sightengine. All third-party names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used only to identify the products being compared.
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Run the models on your own content
100 free moderations a month on the free tier. The same API, dashboard and model catalogue as the paid plans.