CLIP
Foundation Models · Free
OpenAI's contrastive image-text embedding model
At a glance
- Made by
- OpenAI
- Korean
- None (English and a few others only)
- Open source
- MIT
- GitHub
- 34,459 stars · MIT
What is CLIP?
CLIP (Contrastive Language–Image Pre-training) is a neural network trained on image-text pairs from the internet. Given only the names of the categories to classify, it can be used for a variety of visual classification tasks without extra training (zero-shot). It says it matches the performance of ResNet-50 on ImageNet zero-shot without using any of the original 1.28 million labels. It can be installed from GitHub as a Python package to extract image and text features.
- Zero-shot image classification
- Image feature extraction (encode_image)
- Text feature extraction (encode_text)
- Image-text similarity score calculation
- Runs on CPU and CUDA GPU
Who uses CLIP and for what
- Developers and researchers build image classifiers from category names alone
Pricing
Open source (free, weights/code released)
Released free under an open-source license with no extra cost for self-hosting (usage-based pricing when offered as a cloud API)
Estimate based on AI knowledge - please verify on the official site
AI tools similar to CLIP (alternatives)
CLIP vs. alternatives at a glance
| AI | Pricing | Combos on the map | Connected tools | Free | Cheapest monthly | Korean |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CLIP | Free | 0 | 10 | — | — | No |
| ALIGN | Free + paid | 0 | 10 | — | — | No |
| BGE-M3 | Free | 0 | 10 | — | — | No |
| Cohere Embed | Free + paid | 0 | 10 | Yes | $2,000/mo | Yes |
| ImageBind | Free | 0 | 5 | — | — | No |
1 of these 5 tools have a free plan. Cheapest paid plan: Cohere Embed ($2,000/mo).
Combo and connection counts are based on the relationships recorded on AI Galaxy Map (2026-10-26); they are not a quality ranking.
CLIP on AI Galaxy Map
- One of 60 AI tools in the Foundation Models field.
- Connected to 10 other tools — #11 in its field.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use CLIP for free?
Open source (free, weights/code released). Prices can change, so check the official site before paying.
What AI can I use instead of CLIP?
Tools that do the same job, such as ALIGN, BGE-M3, Cohere Embed, ImageBind, are connected to it on the map.
Can I use CLIP in Korean?
None (English and a few others only)
Sources (official pages)
Checked on the official pages on 2026-10-14. Prices and features can change, so check the official site again before paying.