remove.bg alternative that runs in your browser

remove.bg set the expectation for one-click cutouts. The model is large, the edges are often excellent, and the business is an upload plus a credit. That is the right buy for a catalog team. It is a poor default for a photo of your kid, your badge, or an unreleased product.

How the private alternative works

StackImage loads BiRefNet-lite 512 in the page. Weights come from our storage once. Inference runs with WebGPU when the browser has it, otherwise WASM on the CPU. The picture is not an API argument. The first run is slower because the model is large. Later runs in the same session are cheaper.

• Quality: remove.bg usually wins on hair, tulle, and busy backgrounds.
• Privacy: StackImage never takes the pixels. remove.bg must, to run the model.
• Cost: remove.bg meters credits. StackImage does not.
• Limits: we reject images above 16 megapixels. Crop first.
• Output: a subject matte you can download. Not a retoucher.

When to pay remove.bg

Pay when the cutout is going to print or a storefront and you have rights to send the photo to their GPU. Stay local when “good enough for a slide or a marketplace thumbnail” is the job, or when the subject should not be a cloud inference input.

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