What is SightRadar?

SightRadar is a fast, accurate, and affordable face recognition API for developers. This is the official Node.js / TypeScript SDK — a thin, fully-typed wrapper over the SightRadar facial recognition API that lets you add face detection, face matching, 1:1 face verification, and 1:N face search to any application in minutes.

If you are looking for an AWS Rekognition alternative with high-accuracy face recognition, simpler pricing, and a cleaner API, SightRadar is built for you. The SDK has no runtime dependencies (uses the built-in fetch — Node ≥ 18, Deno, Bun, and browsers), and ships full TypeScript types for every request and response.

• 🎯 High-accuracy facial recognition — state-of-the-art embeddings with quality gating for reliable matches
• ⚡ Fast face search — index millions of faces and search a collection with a single selfie
• 🔁 Drop-in AWS Rekognition alternative — familiar index / search / detect / compare operations
• 🟦 First-class TypeScript — typed inputs and responses, works in Node, Deno, Bun, and the browser
• 💸 Transparent, usage-based pricing — pay per call, no minimums (see pricing)

Get a free API key at sightradar.com and start building.

SightRadar vs. AWS Rekognition

Already wrote code against AWS Rekognition? SightRadar mirrors the operations you know — IndexFaces, SearchFacesByImage, DetectFaces, CompareFaces — so migrating is mostly a find-and-replace, not a rewrite. See the migration guide.

| | SightRadar | AWS Rekognition | |---|---|---| | Face detection API | ✅ | ✅ | | 1:1 face verification (compare) | ✅ | ✅ | | 1:N face search (collections) | ✅ | ✅ | | Selfie / liveness-style registration | ✅ | ⚠️ limited | | Zero-dependency SDK | ✅ | ❌ (aws-sdk) | | First-class TypeScript types | ✅ | ⚠️ partial | | Transparent per-call pricing | ✅ | ⚠️ complex tiers | | Free API key to start | ✅ | ⚠️ AWS account required |

Install

npm install sightradar

Authenticate

Create an API key in the console, then pass it directly or via the SIGHTRADAR_API_KEY environment variable.

import { SightRadar } from "sightradar";

const sr = new SightRadar({ apiKey: "frs_..." }); // or new SightRadar() with the env var

Core workflow — index and search faces

// 1. Create a collection to hold faces.
await sr.createCollection("event-2026");

// 2. Index faces from photos (URL, GCS key, or an uploaded file).
await sr.index("event-2026", { url: "https://example.com/group.jpg" });
await sr.index("event-2026", { file: buffer, filename: "photo.jpg", photoId: "img-42" });

// 3. Search the collection with one selfie.
const result = await sr.search("event-2026", { url: "https://example.com/selfie.jpg" });
for (const m of result.matches) console.log(m.photo_id, m.similarity);

Stateless operations (nothing stored)

// Detect + quality-gate faces in an image.
const det = await sr.detect({ url: "https://example.com/photo.jpg" });
console.log(det.detected_face_count, det.gated_face_count);

// 1:1 face verification between two faces.
const cmp = await sr.compare({
  sourceUrl: "https://example.com/a.jpg",
  targetUrl: "https://example.com/b.jpg",
});
console.log(cmp.match, cmp.similarity);

Account

console.log((await sr.wallet()).balance_credits);
console.log(await sr.usage(30));

Errors

Every non-2xx response rejects with a typed error:

import { NotFoundError, AuthenticationError } from "sightradar";

try {
  await sr.describeCollection("missing");
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof NotFoundError) console.log(e.statusCode, e.message);
}

Error classes: SightRadarError (base), AuthenticationError (401), InsufficientCreditsError (402), NotFoundError (404), RateLimitError (429).

Image inputs

Index / search / detect / register-selfie accept exactly one image source:

• url — a public image URL
• gcsKey — a Google Cloud Storage object key
• file — a Blob/File (browser) or Buffer/Uint8Array (Node), uploaded as multipart

search additionally accepts embedding (a 512-number array).

Resources

• 🌐 Website: sightradar.com
• 📚 API documentation: sightradar.com/docs
• 🔑 Get an API key: sightradar.com/login
• 💸 Pricing: sightradar.com/pricing
• 🔄 Migrate from AWS Rekognition: sightradar.com/migrate
• 🐍 Python SDK: github.com/sightradar-hq/sightradar-python

License

MIT © SightRadar