How we measured
The quality numbers we quote come from these runs. Here is exactly what was compared and how.
Test set
30 images that have an original vector file: logos, flags, emoji, icons and line art from open-source sets. Each was fed in three ways — a clean 480 px PNG, a 480 px JPEG with compression artifacts, and a small 240 px version — 10 images per variant.
What we compared
- Shapesoda — default settings, the same pipeline as the website and the API.
- The market leader — the most-visited online vectorizer, default production mode through its API.
- Another popular service — a desktop vectorizer in automatic mode.
- Two typical free tracers — popular free online tools that need no sign-up, through their regular websites with default settings.
Accuracy
Each SVG is rendered on white and compared pixel by pixel with the original vector file at 4× size, so the shape of every edge counts, not just the fill colors. The score is the mean RGB difference (0–255); lower is better.
| Shapesoda | Market leader | Another popular service | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean error | 0.576 | 0.596 | 0.714 |
| Median error | 0.353 | 0.353 | 0.594 |
| No worse than the market leader | 16 of 30 | — | 11 of 30 |
Nodes
A node is one path segment (line or curve) in a filled shape. Fewer nodes means a lighter file that is easier to edit, cut and embroider. The market leader also draws thin seam strokes over its shapes; we leave those out here.
| Shapesoda | Market leader | Another popular service | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nodes per image, average | 174 | 205 | 332 |
| Nodes per image, median | 96 | 159 | 156 |
Price
Shapesoda Personal is $5.99 a month (or $3.99 a week). The market leader's comparable monthly plan is $9.99. Prices checked on 11 October 2026.
Typical free tracers
We also ran two popular free online tracers on the same 30 images (run: 2 October 2026). One traces in the browser with a widely used open-source algorithm; the other traces on its server. Because one of them renders white as a very light grey that the eye cannot see but the average error still punishes, we also count the share of pixels that are visibly wrong (off by more than 48 of 255).
| Shapesoda | Free tracer A | Free tracer B | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visibly wrong pixels, median | 0.12% | 0.33% | 0.74% |
| Median error | 0.353 | 1.588 | 3.018 |
| Shapesoda no worse | — | 29 of 30 | 30 of 30 |
| Nodes per image, median | 96 | 303 | 406 |
| Images visibly broken (over 10% of the area wrong) | 0 | 4 | 0 |
On pixel art (2 images) free tracer B was better than us: 0.38 against 0.50.
Limits
30 images is a small set, and photos are not included — on photos we are currently slightly behind. Free tools were run with default settings; choosing a style by hand can improve their results. We will publish new runs here as the engine changes.