Rasterlessvector

A free alternative to Vectorizer.AI, trade-offs included

You traced something at Vectorizer.AI, liked what came back, and then met the paid part — at the time of writing their published model is credit-based, so the finished file is the thing you buy. An ordinary way to sell software, and the reason you are here: what changes if the same image goes through Rasterless instead, and what do you give up?

Rasterless is free and stamps nothing: no mark on the 800 px preview, none on the downloads. It writes five formats — SVG, PDF, EPS, DXF and PNG — and the DXF is a genuine R2010 (AC1024) drawing for machines: LWPOLYLINE runs and degree-3 SPLINE curves, one layer per colour. Underneath is no learned model at all, only colour segmentation, an anti-aliasing model and curve fitting, so the same picture at the same settings returns the same curves.

What you will not find here is their result beside ours. Their terms of service forbid using output from the service to evaluate or validate a competing system, and we respect that: no screenshots, no borrowed files, no claim about whose curves are prettier. This tracer is measured against your source image alone.

Who this is for

The honest first recommendation sends you back where you came from. If conversions happen inside a system rather than by hand, stay with the paid tool: Vectorizer.AI publishes a documented developer interface, and there is no developer API to call from your own code here, nor a queue for a folder of logos. Theirs is also the older, more finished product — a company behind it, a support channel, more of the engine exposed to turn.

Come this way when the job is a logo, a sticker, a badge or line art, when you want SVG for the web and DXF for a cutter, and when you would rather use a tool that publishes its limits: 25 MB, 40 megapixels, 2 to 64 colours, a 60 second ceiling per conversion.

On their price we will print no number we cannot stand behind; their pricing page is the only source worth trusting. At the time of writing the shape is a subscription carrying an allowance of results, plus credits bought outright. Ours is flatter: nothing to pay today, no tier waiting to be upsold to you, and one deliberate friction — downloading asks for a free Google sign-in. We will not promise it lasts for all time.

Drop an image here

or click to choose one

PNG · JPG · WEBP

How it works

  1. Drop in the image you were about to trace somewhere else — one PNG, JPEG or WEBP per conversion, up to 25 MB and 40 megapixels.
  2. Set the colour count. It starts at 26; flat logos are usually cleaner at 6 to 12, and 2 gives a single solid silhouette.
  3. Tick the formats you need — SVG, PDF, EPS, DXF, PNG. Choosing more than one also produces a ZIP of the set.
  4. Open the preview at full size. Nothing is watermarked, so what you see is what the files hold.
  5. Sign in with Google, which is free, to download.
A flat raster logo on the left and the SVG traced from it on the right, both drawn by our own engine. — source image A flat raster logo on the left and the SVG traced from it on the right, both drawn by our own engine. — vector result
A flat raster logo on the left and the SVG traced from it on the right, both drawn by our own engine.

Settings we suggest

Colours. The slider runs 2 to 64, starting at 26. For a flat logo the honest number is the inks plus the background, six or eight; 26 also reproduces the ring of in-between pixels around every edge.

Formats, draw style, stacking. Tick SVG and DXF together; more than one format also produces a ZIP. Fill shapes makes each colour region a filled path, stroke shapes traces those regions as outlines, stroke edges keeps only the boundaries. Cut-outs, the default, subtracts each shape from the one below, so recolouring never uncovers another. Group by colour to select every red piece at once.

Physical size. Width and height in millimetres land in all four vector formats: the SVG's own width and height, the DXF's coordinates and its millimetre header, and the page box of the PDF and the EPS, converted to points — ask for 150 mm and the PDF page measures 425.2 pt. Left empty, files carry the traced pixel dimensions, read at 96 pixels = 25.4 mm in the SVG and DXF and as points in the PDF and EPS. That is the whole panel — nothing else to tune, a relief or a deal-breaker depending on the day.

Questions

What does it cost, and where is the catch?

Nothing, and the catch is the sign-in. No watermark on anything, preview or download. Converting and previewing are open to everyone; releasing a download takes a free Google sign-in. Signed out you get 10 conversions per hour; signed in, 60 per hour and 300 per day.

What can Vectorizer.AI do that Rasterless cannot?

A fair amount. Theirs is a mature commercial product with a documented developer interface, a support channel, and a settings panel holding more than ours. Our gaps are real: no developer API to call from your own code, one image per conversion rather than a queue, no way to nudge a node after the trace, inputs restricted to PNG, JPEG and WEBP, and a download that asks you to sign in.

Why is there no side-by-side of the two results?

Their terms of service prohibit using output from the service to evaluate or benchmark a competing system, and we follow that rather than test it. It cost us something real: this engine had been tuned against reference files we threw out. What replaced them is a fixed set of 21 test images scored against the source picture — how much of the subject is wrong, how much fine detail is lost, how many pixels land plainly wrong.

Is the DXF a real DXF?

Yes: R2010 (AC1024), so it opens in AutoCAD 2010 and later, Fusion 360, LightBurn, Inkscape and FreeCAD. Inside are LWPOLYLINE runs and degree-3 SPLINE curves, one layer per colour, named FILL_RRGGBB. Outlines only — no shaded regions, no embedded image. Coordinates sit at millimetre scale and the header carries $INSUNITS = 4, so the drawing arrives in millimetres without anyone choosing a unit for it.

Will the same image give me the same file next month?

Yes. No model makes a judgement call here: colours are segmented, the anti-aliased band along each boundary is modelled explicitly, curves are fitted to it. Same image, same settings, same paths — which matters when a client returns wanting one colour swapped.

How long does it take, and what are the limits?

One image per conversion, as PNG, JPEG or WEBP, up to 25 MB and 40 megapixels; anything above 1.5 megapixels is downscaled before tracing, so the output's pixel dimensions are the downscaled ones. Logos and stickers typically convert in 3–12 seconds in our local measurements; fine-line or noisy images take longer, and a conversion that has not finished after 60 seconds stops and suggests fewer colours or a smaller image. Download links expire after 1 hour; uploaded images and generated files are removed by an automatic 1-day deletion rule.

Related pages