Google Cloud Vision vs Amazon Rekoginition: Which is Better?

Over the years, there has been a sea change in the manner of performing various tasks — thanks to the advancement of technology. In line with this trend, companies have started investing in reliable services for the segmentation and classification of visual content.

Technology majors such as Google and Amazon have stepped into the arena with an impressive line of services for detecting images, videos and objects. Google has come up with Google Cloud Vision API which, according to the company, does a decent job at detecting unusual images from the usual ones.

In addition, Amazon isn’t too far behind in this regard. Amazon Rekognition, latest addition from Amazon, is its answer to Google’s product for the detection of faces, objects, and images.

According to most tech pundits, both the options involve features that are capable of giving users a run for their money. However, they believe it is easier said than done for common users to make a choice at the outset without considering the features of both the options.

The popularity of Google has played an important role in bringing its service under the spotlight. In comparison, Amazon’s Rekognition is relatively new. Now the question is What is Amazon Rekognition? Which one of the two is a better choice? Read on to find out the answer to these questions.

What is Amazon Rekognition?

Amazon Rekognition is Amazon’s advanced technology for face and video detection which has been developed by its computer vision scientists. It enables users to add images and videos to applications after analyzing them thoroughly. Apart from images and videos, it also identifies people, activities, and objects that are present in Amazon S3.

One of the highlights of this sophisticated technology is that it does not necessitate users to have any special kind of training or knowledge such as machine learning to operate. It is simple and easy to utilize this technology. With Amazon Rekognition API, one can compare, analyze and detect a wide range of faces for public safety, counting people, cataloging, and verification.

Google Cloud Vision vs Amazon Rekognition: Input/Output & Data Ingestion

Both services have one thing in common. They support only vector graphics. While these options do not support animated images and videos, Google’s service only supports the first frame in the case of animated images.

While Google’s service accepts images only from Google Cloud Storage, Amazon’s version of the service accepts images from Amazon S3.

Amazon’s service for face recognition fares well with images that are loaded either in PNG or JPG formats. Google Vision API has an upper hand in this respect in the sense that it supports a wide range of formats such as ICO, Raw, WebP, BMP, GIF, PNG, and JPG.

As far as uploading images on both the services is concerned, users have the choice to upload either inline images or from the cloud storage. The latter is a better choice compared to the former for image uploading as it performs the task without compromising the quality.

Neither Rekognition nor Vision supports the uploading of images from URLs that are arbitrary by nature. Though one can add such images to these services via a third data source that needs additional networking which can be expensive.

Google Cloud Vision vs Amazon Rekognition: Detection of Face & Objects

In contrast to the inefficiency of Vision in detecting misleading labels, Amazon Rekognition does a better job. Despite the former lagging behind the latter in terms of numbers, it has a higher range of accuracy than the other option.

Many have conducted detailed analysis of Google Vision API and Amazon’s version of API that also suggest that the former is less reliable in detecting images when they are rotated at 90 degrees. This can be attributed to the advanced technology of Amazon relating to rotational in-variance.

When it comes to detecting emotions, the service by Amazon steals the show with the capability to detect a wide range of emotions like calmness, surprise, disgust, confusion, anger, happiness, and sadness. In contrast, the service by Google is trained to detect only four types of emotions: surprise, anger, sorrow, and joy. It classifies these emotions with four labels: “likely”, “unlikely”, “very likely”, and “very unlikely”.

When comparing the two on the scale of face comparison and search, Amazon wins over Google. Vision is considered exceptionally good for face detection, but lacks at face search and comparison. However, Amazon offers amazing face detection, search and comparison with outstanding emotional accuracy.

Google Cloud Vision vs Amazon Rekognition: Subscription Charge

You do not need to pay in advance to use these services. Moreover, the charges of using both the services depend upon your request to process images. That is to say, the vendors bill you for the number of images that you process via their services.

On average, Google’s face detection service is found a little pricey when compared to Amazon’s service. Therefore, the latter is a better choice for those who are on a tight budget and prefer a cost-effective solution.

Wrapping It Up

From the above, it is clear that Amazon wins the Amazon Rekognition vs Google Cloud Vision race by a huge margin. While both the services are based on distinct technologies, they provide almost similar outcomes in certain cases. The price factor and face detection at varied angles are the two aspects that give Rekognition an edge over Google Vision. Still, the the decision to make a choice remains with individual.

We would like to know your experience with Google Vision and Amazon Rekognition and the functionality that you love the most.