Toloka AI Review & Its Top Alternatives for RLHF in 2024

As AI-powered solutions grow, companies rely on services like AI data services or RLHF   platforms to help them build technologies like large language models (LLMs), generative AI tools, natural language processing (NLP), etc. Toloka AI is one such service offering various AI services for businesses developing AI solutions.

As most companies outsource AI development, if your business also wishes to work with an RLHF and AI data partner like Toloka AI, our research can guide you.

Readers interested in Toloka AI usually fall under 2 categories; select yours to see relevant information for your business:

• Toloka AI workers (Tolokers): These are workers who work or wish to work for Toloka AI and want to evaluate the company and its alternatives before deciding. If you are a worker, click here.
• Toloka AI customers (i.e., Buyers): These are businesses that are interested in Toloka AI’s services but want to evaluate the company and its alternatives before committing. If you are a customer or buyer, click here.

Top Toloka AI alternatives (for workers)

Table 1. Alternatives comparison for workers

* Based on data from Trustpilot since it mostly has reviews from workers.

** Based on information gathered from analysis of worker reviews.

Notes:

• The companies are ranked based on the total number of reviews.
• The table was created using publicly available and verifiable data.
• The links in the table can be used to access the signup and career pages of the companies for workers.

Top Toloka AI alternatives (for customers)

This section offers a table comparing the top alternatives of Toloka AI.

Table 2. Alternatives comparison based on market presence

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

Notes:

• The companies are ranked based on the number of reviews.
• A company is considered to follow a code of conduct if it has a code of conduct page on its website.
• The table was created using publicly available and verifiable data.

What is Toloka AI?

Toloka AI was launched by Yandex in 2014 and offers a crowdsourcing platform for services surrounding AI and machine learning development. It claims to provide scalable human-generated data solutions. Toloka allows companies and researchers to break down large tasks into micro-tasks that can be distributed to its global network of contributors, who then complete the tasks in exchange for compensation.

Toloka AI’s offerings

Here are some of its key offerings by Toloka AI, as claimed on its website:

• RLHF:  Offers RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback) service for training large language models and other AI models.
• Data labeling and annotation: Provides training data for machine learning models, including image annotation, text labeling, and data classification.
• Data collection: Gathers or generates data in multiple languages and from different geographies.
• Data cleaning and enrichment: Cleans and improves existing datasets, including tasks like removing duplicates and correcting errors.
• Data validation: Offers data validation for dataset accuracy and reliability fulfilled by its network of workers.

Pros and cons of working with Toloka AI (for customers)

This section highlights some pros and cons of working with Toloka AI based on our analysis of customer reviews from B2B review platforms like G2, Trustradius and Capterra, and comparing the data with its alternatives.

1. Crowd size

We identified that Toloka AI’s network of contributors or crowd size is smaller than its alternatives, such as Clickworker and Appen, and larger than Prolific. 

RLHF requires an extensive amount of human input, and a large network of contributors can offer a higher level of diversity to the project. See Figure 1 for a comparison of the crowd sizes of Toloka and its alternatives.

2. Additional services

Toloka also offers data annotation as a service, which is a positive since it can make the dataset preparation process more efficient.

3. Customer reviews

We did not find any customer reviews of Toloka on B2B review platforms. It can be difficult to evaluate Toloka’s performance from the customers’ perspective and how well it meets up to its claims. In our experience, customers find it difficult to trust companies with no reviews on B2B review platforms.

Figure 1. Crowd size comparison

Notes for Figure 1:

• Companies with a crowd size of less than 100K were not included.
• Some vendors were also excluded since their crowd size data was not found on their websites.

Alternatives’ review

This section discusses the alternatives in detail and evaluates their performance based on customer review data and data gathered from comparing their websites.

1. Clickworker

Clickworker offers various AI services through its crowdsourcing platform and its global network of over 6 million workers. Here is a list of its offerings

• RLHF
• AI collection and generation
• Data annotation
• Sentiment analysis data and service
• Data types include text, image, video, audio, and speech.

Clickworker’s pros and cons

• Clickworker has the largest crowd among all Toloka AI alternatives. A large crowd usually results in a faster and more diverse service.
• A customer review regarding Clickworker’s user-friendly platform and reliable crowd.¹

• A customer found Clickworker’s annotation services’ prices high. However, the customer also found services efficient. We found that Clickworker claims to offer custom pricing on its website.²

2. Appen

Appen works with a crowdsourcing platform focusing its services on deep learning, data collection, RLHF, and machine-learning models. Apart from RLHF, its services include:

• AI training data collection
• Data annotation
• Sentiment analysis services

Appen’s pros and cons:

• Appen has the 2nd largest crowd amongst other Toloka alternatives.
• Recent news has highlighted that Appen’s performance is declining, and the company is going through financial losses.³
• A customer review regarding Appen’s platform and server crashes.⁴

3. Prolific

Prolific is another suitable alternative to Toloka AI since it offers RLHF services as part of its AI training and research services. The company leverages crowdsourcing to offer its AI training and academic research services. Apart from RLHF, its services include:

• AI data collection
• Academic research data
• Data labeling tools can be paired with Prolific’s platform

Prolific’s pros and cons:

• One of the drawbacks identified by analyzing the review is that all of its customer reviews are regarding its research-related services. This indicates that Prolific’s AI and RLHF services may not be popular.⁵
• While some research customers found Prolific’s customer support to be good, others had issues with the platform’s inability to set customized quotas based on geographic and demographic parameters.⁶
• Prolific also offers a relatively smaller crowd as compared to the other alternatives.

4. Surge AI

Founded in 2020 and based in California, Surge AI offers various services for machine learning models through a crowdsourcing model. Surge AI claims to focus on RLHF and AI data collection for LLMS and natural language processing (NLP). Here is a list of its services:

• RLHF
• AI training dataset preparation
• Text data annotation

Pros and cons of Surge AI

• Surge AI focuses primarily on its RLHF for LLMs and NLP.
• There are no reviews available on any B2B review platforms. This is a negative point since customers can not get an outside view of Surge AI’s services and whether it meets up to its claims.

Limitations

• For the comparison, we relied completely on the publicly available and verifiable data.
• The criteria used to compare the alternatives will be refined as the market, and our understanding of the market evolves.
• The statements of the company’s capabilities were not verified. A company is assumed to offer a capability if that capability is highlighted in its product page or case studies as of Dec/2023.
• The capabilities of the RLHF service providers were not quantitatively measured. We checked if capabilities were offered or not. In a benchmarking exercise with products, quantitative metrics can be introduced.

Transparency statement

AIMultiple serves numerous emerging tech companies and vendors, including the ones linked in this article.

Further reading

• Top 3 Prolific Alternatives & Evaluation
• Guide to RLHF LLMs: Benefits & Top Vendors

If you need help finding a vendor or have any questions, feel free to contact us:

External resources

• 1. Clickworker customer review on reliability and easy-to-use platform. G2. Accessed: 12/December/2023.
• 2. Clickworker’s review regarding data annotation services. G2. Accessed: 12/December/2023.
• 3. Hayden Field, (2023). Inside the turmoil at Appen, the former AI darling that’s reeling from executive exits, big losses. CNBC. Accessed: 12/December/2023.
• 4. Appen’s negative review regarding server crashes. G2. Accessed: 12/December/2023.
• 5. Most Prolific reviews are for its research services. G2. Accessed: 12/December/2023.
• 6. Prolific’s review on customer support and customized parameters. G2. Accessed: 12/December/2023