From the SightRadar team
Build guides & face recognition engineering
Real architecture, working code, and honest tradeoffs for building with a face recognition API — migrating from AWS Rekognition, face search, cost, and consent-first design.
Comparisons
Migrate IndexFaces and SearchFacesByImage from AWS Rekognition
A step-by-step guide to moving your AWS Rekognition face collection code to a compatible API — endpoint swap, compatibility matrix, dual-write backfill, and rollback.
Cost
How much does a face recognition API cost? (with worked examples)
A transparent cost breakdown for face recognition APIs — per-photo indexing, search, and storage — with worked million-photo scenarios and how prepaid credits compare to AWS Rekognition.
7 minGuides
Build production face search with a selfie (Index + Search)
A complete guide to building 1:N face search — upload a selfie, find every photo a person appears in. Data model, indexing pipeline, ranked results, deletion, and tenant isolation.
11 minGuides
Build event & wedding photo face-tagging (find-my-photos)
Let guests find their photos from a selfie. A build guide for event and wedding galleries: batch indexing, guest-initiated search, consent, HEIC uploads, and deletion after the event.
9 minGuides
Add 1:1 face verification to your signup flow (safely)
How to add selfie-to-ID face matching to onboarding with a face recognition API — the Compare operation, thresholds, liveness, fallback review, and why face match alone isn't KYC.
8 minGuides
Multi-tenant face search: isolation, deletion, and cost attribution
How to architect face recognition for a multi-tenant SaaS — per-tenant collection isolation, authorization, cost attribution, noisy-neighbour control, deletion propagation, and audit logs.
12 minGuides
Detecting duplicate accounts by face (without wrongful bans)
How to catch duplicate or fraudulent signups with face recognition — enrollment, candidate review, score calibration, human appeals, and why you should never auto-ban on a single similarity score.
10 minConcepts
Choosing a face-match threshold: FMR, FNMR, and operating points
How to pick a similarity threshold for face recognition without guessing — false match rate vs false non-match rate, validation sets, score distributions, and a two-tier reveal pattern.
8 minGuides
Handling HEIC & WebP images in a face recognition pipeline
Why iPhone HEIC and CDN WebP break most face recognition APIs, how to handle EXIF orientation and size limits, and how to skip the transcode step entirely with native decoding.
8 minConcepts
What is a faceprint? Face embeddings explained for developers
A developer's explanation of faceprints and face embeddings — what the vector is, how similarity scoring works, why embeddings aren't portable between models, and the privacy implications.
7 minCost
Self-hosted vs hosted face recognition: the real total cost
A clear-eyed TCO comparison of running open-source face recognition yourself versus a hosted API — GPUs, redundancy, model updates, staffing, and when each option actually wins.
8 minConcepts
Why face search is replacing the public gallery link
Public photo-gallery links are being replaced by privacy-first, selfie-based face search — guests get only their own photos. Why the shift is happening and what it means for platforms.
8 minGuides
How to build a face recognition photo-sharing platform
A complete architecture for a face-search photo-sharing platform — camera-to-cloud ingestion, per-event indexing, selfie retrieval, personal galleries, WhatsApp/email delivery, and retention.
13 minCost
Scaling an event photo platform on face search: a worked model
An illustrative reference model for an event photo-sharing platform running on a face recognition API — the efficiency, reliability, and per-guest economics of indexing 50k photos for 5k guests.
9 minLearn
12 face recognition project ideas (college, hobby & ML learning)
Face recognition project ideas for final-year, hobby, and AI/ML learning builds — scoped from beginner to advanced, with what to build, what you'll learn, and whether to use an API or roll your own.
11 minLearn
Face recognition in Python: a beginner's tutorial (2 ways)
A beginner-friendly guide to face recognition in Python — the classic local approach with the face_recognition library, and the no-setup API approach. Full code, when to use each, and common install fixes.
10 minLearn
Build a face recognition attendance system (student project guide)
A responsible, step-by-step guide to building a face recognition attendance system for a class or club project — enrollment, check-in, a CSV/DB log, consent, and what to avoid.
11 min