BirdNET
Hacker ApprovedBird song identifier
Free software that identifies birds by their calls and songs, runs locally on cheap hardware. Critics note weaker results outside North America.
Free software that identifies birds by their calls and songs, runs locally on cheap hardware. Critics note weaker results outside North America.
27 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 24
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 89%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 24 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Runs locally and self-hosted
“an excellent alternative to BirdNet-Pi that runs well on non-Raspberry-Pi machines”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Avian Visitors” “pretty neat to locally analyze and track what birds would come by my back yard”
Comment from 27 Jul 2026 in “Why budding birders are flocking to Shazam-like apps to identify avians” “which is a popular way of self-hosting bird-detections”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations” - Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “BirdNET-Go – 24/7 realtime bird song analysis”
Works with camera and audio streams
“I did exactly this with BirdNet-Go and my Unifi doorbell cam.”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system” “birdnet go works with any rtsp audio stream”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system” Easy setup and small install
“it is incredibly easy to setup a real-time bird monitor around your property”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “iNaturalist” “BirdNet is only a ~30MB install and birds are everywhere”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “iNaturalist” Inspires many other bird projects
“So many bird projects recently and I think it's all thanks to this project”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations” “Cool projects, lovely apps and interesting tech usage.”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Weak accuracy in some regions
“BirdNET and Perch are phenomenal achievements, but struggle in regions where, ironically, most of the world’s biodiversity is”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Avian Visitors” “at least in Australia, it regularly identifies calls with low probability”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system” “birds in Rwanda which are poorly detected by birdnet”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Avian Visitors”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BirdNETThis page | 24 | 3 | 89% | 7 | — | Approved |
| BirdNET-Pi | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
26 of the 29 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“a cheap way to get into BirdNET”
“BirdNET has great coverage for the US/North America.”
“It's a really cool project!”
“So many bird projects recently and I think it's all thanks to this project”
“which is a popular way of self-hosting bird-detections”
“BirdNET-Go (an open-source BirdNET classifier) detects birds by sound”
“these do allow you to be very strict with detections and reduce false positives more”
“it seems to be pretty easy using embeddings from existing models”
“at least in Australia, it regularly identifies calls with low probability”
“birdnet go works with any rtsp audio stream”
“Even with poor audio on my phone I find that it works very well.”
“Watchable from every TV in the house and shows the birds photo and name when it hears one.”
“I did exactly this with BirdNet-Go and my Unifi doorbell cam.”
“Cool projects, lovely apps and interesting tech usage.”
“Arent most these apps just BirdNET either cloud processed or bundled into a mobile app?”
“pretty neat to locally analyze and track what birds would come by my back yard”
“BirdNET and Perch are phenomenal achievements, but struggle in regions where, ironically, most of the world’s biodiversity is”
“birds in Rwanda which are poorly detected by birdnet”
“Birdnet-go is really good and actively maintained.”
“an excellent alternative to BirdNet-Pi that runs well on non-Raspberry-Pi machines”
“this is a fun app to self-host”
“it is incredibly easy to setup a real-time bird monitor around your property”
“separate recording, selecting, uploading, and results steps, which I tried to teach but it's too much”
“BirdNet is only a ~30MB install and birds are everywhere”
“it seems to want an internet connection to do the identification”
“You can run BirdNET's model live in your browser”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.