IS-Net Anime (isnet-anime) background removal#

IS-Net trained for anime and illustrated characters.

Run it: rembg i -m isnet-anime input.jpg output.png setup

isnet-anime results on 34 images

Original, cutout and alpha matte for every Bench v0 image, with its MAE and MGE against the ground truth. Each opens the side-by-side comparison.

How to run isnet-anime

isnet-anime ships with rembg as the session isnet-anime. The weights download on first use.

Command line

pip install "rembg[cpu,cli]"
rembg i -m isnet-anime input.jpg output.png

Python

from rembg import new_session, remove
from PIL import Image

session = new_session("isnet-anime")  # load once, reuse for every image
output = remove(Image.open("input.jpg"), session=session)
output.save("output.png")

Other sessions: all rembg models.

IS-Net Anime as a free, open-source remove.bg alternative

remove.bg is a paid cloud service. IS-Net Anime is open weights under Apache-2.0, so commercial use is allowed. It runs on your own machine (rembg i -m isnet-anime input.jpg output.png), offline, with no upload and no per-image cost. On Bench v0 it ranks #17 of 17 by accuracy (MAE); withoutBG Open Weights ranks #3.

remove.bg is not in Bench v0, so there is no score against it. See withoutBG Open Weights and remove.bg side by side, or compare all remove.bg alternatives.

Quick take

  • Best for: Anime, manga and illustrated characters
  • Avoid when: Photographs: use a general model
  • Notes: Bench v0 is general-purpose photos, so its score here understates this model on drawings: Bench v0 has no illustrations.

When a hosted model is worth it

isnet-anime is free and runs on your machine; keep it if the results above are good enough. If you need finer hair and edges, or don't want to run large models locally, rembg also ships the withoutBG Pro Model as the withoutbg session, ranked #1 of 17 by accuracy on Bench v0. Images are sent to withoutBG's servers.

Same command, hosted model

export WITHOUTBG_API_KEY=sk_...
rembg i -m withoutbg input.jpg output.png

Sign up for 50 free credits (no credit card) or See its results.