eBird alternatives

3 tools to consider instead of eBird, shown against it.

eBird GBIF Restor NatureMetrics
Vendor Cornell Lab of Ornithology GBIF Secretariat (intergovernmental) Restor (Crowther Lab / ETH Zurich spinoff, backed by Google) NatureMetrics
Pricing model Free Free Free Quote only
Free tier Yes Yes Yes No
Deployment Cloud Cloud Cloud Cloud
Open source No No No No
Best for Birders, ecologists and land managers who need continuously updated, crowd-sourced bird occurrence data. Researchers and analysts needing a single, citable, standardized source for global species-occurrence data. Restoration practitioners and funders wanting a public map to register, discover and compare ecosystem restoration sites. Infrastructure, mining, agriculture and conservation projects needing lab-verified species data for biodiversity baselines and reporting.
Pricing

Free for birders and researchers; funded by Cornell, grants and donations.

Pricing has not been verified yet — see the vendor's site.

Free to all users; funded by participating national governments.

Pricing has not been verified yet — see the vendor's site.

Free to register and browse projects; funded by philanthropic and corporate partners rather than user fees.

Pricing has not been verified yet — see the vendor's site.

Priced per sample or per project depending on lab analysis required; no public price list.

Pricing has not been verified yet — see the vendor's site.

Features
  • Mobile and web checklist submission
  • Volunteer and automated data review
  • Public global observation database
  • Downloadable bulk dataset
  • Public API access
  • Abundance and range model products
  • Personal birding statistics and life lists
  • 2+ billion aggregated species occurrence records
  • Standardized Darwin Core data format
  • Citable DOI per dataset download
  • Free public REST API
  • Bulk data downloads
  • Taxonomic backbone and name matching
  • Global coverage across all taxa
  • Public map of restoration and conservation sites
  • Satellite-derived ecological context per site
  • Biodiversity intactness and biomass data
  • Project progress and species logging
  • Funder and researcher discovery tools
  • Global, open-access site registry
  • Integration with open Earth-observation datasets
  • Field eDNA sampling kits
  • Laboratory genetic sequencing
  • Species-presence detection from water/soil/air
  • Biodiversity baseline and trend reporting
  • TNFD-aligned disclosure support
  • Digital results platform
  • Project-level biodiversity dashboards

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