#88th of 33 in Data and scraping for AI
labelme
Desktop image annotation tool with polygon labeling and SAM-assisted masks
- Stars
- 16.3k
- License
- GPL-3.0
- Last commit
- Nov 2026
- Last release
- Oct 2026
- Language
- Python
15,595 on 10 Apr 202616,251 on 30 Oct 2026
From GitHub's daily star counts.
Checked on GitHub.
Overview
Labelme is a Qt (PySide6) desktop app for annotating images with polygon, rectangle, circle, line and point shapes, saved as JSON files. It exports VOC and COCO datasets and offers AI-assisted annotation: SAM and EfficientSAM for point-to-polygon, YOLO-world and SAM3 for text-to-annotation. It is an application, not a library, with no stable Python API.
Who it is for: ML engineers building image datasets for detection and segmentation
Ranked among open-source alternatives to Apify (#7 of 10) and LlamaParse (#6 of 10).
Strengths
- Supports polygon, rectangle, circle, line, point shapes plus image-level flags
- Exports VOC and COCO datasets for segmentation and detection
- Built-in SAM, EfficientSAM, YOLO-world and SAM3 assisted labeling
- Installs with pip; UI translated into 20 languages
Weaknesses
- v7 requires Python 3.12+ and PySide6; Qt5 users must pin labelme<7
- No stable Python API; internal modules were made private in v7
- Standalone no-Python app is a paid one-time purchase
- Single-user desktop GUI; no team or review workflow described
What it needs
- Needs Python 3.12+, PySide6 (Qt6)
- Models: SAM, EfficientSAM, YOLO-world, SAM3
Quick answers
Is labelme open source?
Yes. Its code is on GitHub under the GPL-3.0 license.
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