Innodata Review & Top 3 Alternatives in 2025

Technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), computer vision (CV), or generative AI, are all fueled by data. Businesses are increasingly relying on AI data collection services to obtain this data.

Innodata Inc. is an AI data service provider that claims to help companies fulfill their AI data needs. However, our analysis has highlighted certain limitations in working with Innodata Inc.

Readers interested in Innodata fall under two categories; select yours to see information that is relevant to you:

• Innodata’s workers: These are workers who wish to work within Innodata’s crowd as participants. If you are a worker, click here.
• Customers (i.e., buyers): These are businesses that are interested in Innodata’s services but want to evaluate them and consider their alternatives. If you are a potential customer or buyer, click here.

If you are considering Innodata, this article offers an in-depth review of the company and offers three alternatives.

Top 3 Innodata alternatives (for workers)

This section compares the alternatives based on criteria that are useful for potential or current workers of Innodata.

Table 1. Innodata alternatives comparison (for workers)

* The data for worker ratings is gathered from Trustpilot, where most reviewers are workers rather than buyers.

** Data gathered from analyzing worker reviews.

Top 3 Innodata alternatives (for customers)

This section compares the alternatives based on criteria that are useful for potential buyers or customers of Innodata’s services.

Table 2. Innodata alternatives comparison (for customers)

* Data was gathered from B2B review platforms such as G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra.

**Since LXT acquired Clickworker, their reviews were combined when calculating LXT’s scores.

Notes for the tables

• The comparison is based on publicly available and verifiable data
• The companies are ranked based on the number of reviews.

Innodata Inc review

Founded in 1988 and based in New Jersey, USA, Innodata offers different solutions for AI development. Innodata Inc. was formerly known as Innodata Isogen, Inc. The company claims to manage over 4,000 experts (SMEs) globally who have expertise in multiple industries, including healthcare, legal, and finance. With its workforce, it claims to offer the following services:

• Data collection: It offers customized natural and synthetic data collection services for AI model training. This includes sourcing a range of data types to suit different AI and machine learning needs​​.
• Data annotation: Innodata also offers data annotation or labeling services, focusing on complex and sensitive data.
• Applied AI services: This service is aimed at making regular, complex business tasks more efficient by using expert help.
• Generative AI: The company also claims to offer datasets for generative AI development.

Innodata review (for customers)

This section discusses some of the pros and cons of purchasing Innodata’s services based on our analysis of the company and its alternatives.

1. Additional services

Innodata offers data annotation with its data collection service, which is a plus point since they are both complementary services for preparing datasets for machine learning models. Some companies do not offer data annotation along with their other data services; you need to use your own tool, which can be inefficient.

2. Lack of reviews

Customer or user reviews on B2B review platforms, such as G2, TrustRadius, or Capterra, help potential buyers look at the company from its customers/users’ viewpoint. 

Our analysis did not find any reviews for Innodata, indicating that the company may not have a large customer base. This can make it difficult for potential customers to understand how well the company lives up to its claims and what issues its customers face.

3. Smaller crowd size 

The level of diversity and the preparation speed of a human-generated dataset depend on how many people work on that dataset. As compared to its alternatives like LXT or Appen, Innodata has a significantly smaller pool of workers (around 4000) who work on its data services. This means Innodata will be able to provide datasets in fewer languages and domains. This also indicates that Innodata might have issues preparing large-scale datasets in shorter periods of time.

Detailed review of alternatives

This section reviews all three alternatives mentioned in this article.

1. LXT

LXT, the parent company of Clickworker, is a good alternative to Innodata since it offers various AI services and data solutions through its crowdsourcing platform. The company leverages its global network of over 6 million workers to complete AI data projects.

Here is a list of LXT’s data solutions:

• Datasets collected and generated by humans
• Data types include text, audio, speech, image, and video
• Data annotation services
• Research/survey data
• Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF).

2. Appen

Appen is another alternative to Innodata and a popular name in the AI data space. Its offerings include:

• Data collection & generation
• Data types include image, video, text, audio, and speech
• Data annotation
• Data validation

3. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)

Amazon Mechanical Turk, or MTurk, is also a popular alternative for Innodata, offering AI services through a crowdsourcing model and a marketplace.

Here is a list of their offerings:

• AI data collection and generation of different data types
• Data annotation
• Market research & surveys
• Academic research
• Other data services

Learn about Amazon Mechanical Turk alternatives here.

Further reading

• Top 4 Data Collection Methods
• Crowdsourcing Platforms Comparison & Selection Guide
• Crowdsourced AI Data Collection Benefits & Best Practices
• Quick Guide to Datasets for Machine Learning
• Top 3 Amazon Mechanical Turk Alternatives & Their Evaluation
• Appen Evaluation & Top 3 Alternatives
• Top 3 Hive Alternatives & Their Evaluations

External resources