Comparison

AnnotateIt AI vs Alembic

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

AnnotateIt AI

Features
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nnotateIt AI is a local-first image and video annotation tool for creating high-quality computer vision datasets on your iPhone and iPad. Label data for object detection, segmentation, classification, keypoint detection, and other machine learning workflows. Combine precise manual annotation tools with on-device AI assistance to work faster while keeping control of every result. Your projects, images, videos, and annotations are stored on the device. AnnotateIt AI does not require you to upload datasets to a third-party annotation service, making it suitable for private, sensitive, and proprietary data. KEY FEATURES • Annotate images and video frames • Create bounding boxes, polygons, masks, keypoints, and classifications • On-device AI-assisted segmentation, ready to use offline • Organize labels and classes for different project types • Import and export complete project archives • Dataset versioning with undo and redo history • Export annotations for common computer vision workflows • No account required BUILT FOR COMPUTER VISION AnnotateIt AI supports workflows for: • Object detection • Instance segmentation • Single-label and multi-label classification • Keypoint detection • Video frame annotation • Anomaly detection FLEXIBLE EXPORTS Export labeled datasets to widely used formats, including YOLO, COCO, Pascal VOC, and Datumaro, for use in model training and evaluation pipelines. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your dataset media and annotations stay on your device during the core annotation workflow. Network access may be used only to download an optional sample project or to open links you request; your projects are not uploaded to an external annotation service. AnnotateIt AI is built for machine learning engineers, computer vision researchers, students, consultants, and small teams that need practical annotation tools without a cloud-first workflow. Note: on iPhone and iPad, imports are limited to images up to 32 MB, videos up to 128 MB and 10 minutes, and archives up to 128 MB. AI-generated suggestions should always be reviewed before inclusion in production datasets.

About

Alembic

Features
Read full description

Alembic is a professional, private data-preparation workspace for turning messy source material into dependable training datasets and retrieval-ready collections. IMPORT REAL-WORLD DATA Open CSV, TSV, JSON, JSONL, SQLite, Markdown, HTML, plain text, code, or entire document folders. Alembic detects structure, encoding, delimiters, types, and import problems before processing begins. DESIGN A REPEATABLE PIPELINE Compose deterministic steps for normalization, null handling, type inference, exact and near-duplicate removal, quality filtering, token counting, semantic chunking, privacy scrubbing, decontamination, schema shaping, and dataset splitting. Disable, reorder, inspect, and replay every step. PREPARE TRAINING AND RAG DATA Shape clean records for Alpaca, OpenAI, Anthropic, ChatML, and DPO structures. Build reproducible splits, sentence-aware token-budgeted chunks, heading paths, metadata, real cl100k token counts, and embedding-ready JSONL. PRIVACY AND QUALITY CONTROLS Detect and redact emails, phone numbers, addresses, credentials, API keys, financial identifiers, and other sensitive patterns. Screen against evaluation sets, identify exact and fuzzy duplicates, and inspect quality metrics before export. LOCAL BY DEFAULT The deterministic pipeline works locally. Optional provider augmentation uses a provider you configure; credentials stay in Keychain and selected content goes directly to that provider. FREE AND PRO Importing, the complete deterministic pipeline, preview, dataset reports, and export are free forever. Alembic Pro is an optional auto-renewable subscription with monthly and annual choices and an eligible 7-day free trial. Pro unlocks LLM-assisted Q&A generation, quality scoring, rewriting, classification, and preference-pair creation. The current localized price and trial eligibility are always supplied by the App Store before purchase. Restore Purchases and Manage Subscription are available in Settings. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://github.com/lukekevinmclaughlin-oss/Alembic/blob/main/PRIVACY.md

Screenshots

AnnotateIt AI4 screens
Alembic3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: AnnotateIt AI at none against Alembic's 2. AnnotateIt AI also leads on iOS requirement (14.0 vs 17.0). Alembic's advantage is update cadence (monthly vs every 11 months). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Alembic sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. AnnotateIt AI asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

AnnotateIt AI ships an update every 11 months, Alembic monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 7, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 3 level
AnnotateIt AI versus Alembic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAnnotateIt AIAlembic
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 11 monthsMonthly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS14.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size95 MB6 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperYury VolokitinLuke Mclaughlin

In-app purchases

None

AnnotateIt AI

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

Alembic

Subscriptions2
  • Alembic Pro Monthly Plan7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Alembic Pro Annual7 Days trial$29.991 Year

Questions

Is AnnotateIt AI free?
AnnotateIt AI is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Alembic free?
Alembic is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do AnnotateIt AI or Alembic have ads?
Neither AnnotateIt AI nor Alembic shows ads.
Which is updated more often, AnnotateIt AI or Alembic?
AnnotateIt AI ships an update every 11 months, and Alembic monthly. Most recently, AnnotateIt AI was updated on October 7, 2026 and Alembic on September 29, 2026.

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