Vision & documents
Amazon Rekognition / Amazon Comprehend vs Azure AI Content Safety
Rekognition content moderation (and Comprehend toxicity detection for text) maps to Azure AI Content Safety.
Side-by-side comparison
| Aspect | Amazon Web Services | Microsoft Azure |
|---|---|---|
| Service | Amazon Rekognition Amazon Comprehend | Azure AI Content Safety |
| Lifecycle | Streaming Events and Batch Image Content Moderation are in maintenance (Mar 31, 2026). Person Pathing was fully shut down Oct 31, 2025. Topic modeling, event detection, and prompt safety classification are no longer available to new customers (maintenance, Mar 31, 2026). Other features are unaffected. | Generally available |
| What it is | Prebuilt image and video analysis. Labels, text, moderation, face detection, comparison and search, celebrity recognition, and Face Liveness. NLP. Entities, key phrases, sentiment and targeted sentiment, language detection, PII, syntax, toxicity, and custom classification/entity recognition. | Standalone text and image moderation APIs, Prompt Shields (jailbreak and indirect-attack detection), groundedness detection (preview), protected-material detection, custom categories (preview), and agent task-adherence detection. |
| Pricing model | Per image (Rekognition) or per text unit (Comprehend). | Per image and per text record, with a free tier. |
| Docs | Amazon Rekognition docs Amazon Comprehend docs | Azure AI Content Safety docs |
| Pricing page | Amazon Rekognition pricing Amazon Comprehend pricing | Azure AI Content Safety pricing |
| Exams | AIF-C01 | AI-103 |
Key differences
- Rekognition Batch Image Content Moderation entered maintenance on Mar 31, 2026. Real-time moderation APIs are unaffected.
- Azure Content Safety returns multi-severity scores for hate, sexual, violence, and self-harm, and supports custom categories (preview) and blocklists. The old Azure Content Moderator is retired.
Pricing summary
Pricing models only. No prices are quoted because they change by region and over time.
- AWS
- Per image (Rekognition) or per text unit (Comprehend). Amazon Rekognition pricing → Amazon Comprehend pricing →
- Azure
- Per image and per text record, with a free tier. Azure AI Content Safety pricing →
Certification exam mapping
| Exam | Provider | Level | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS Certified AI Practitioner AIF-C01 | AWS | Foundational | current Italian and German versions retire after Oct 15, 2026 (per AWS cert page). |
| Microsoft Certified – Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate AI-103 | Azure | Associate | current Generative AI and agentic solutions with Microsoft Foundry using Python. Successor in scope to the retired AI-102. |
Relevance is based on each exam's published scope, not a line-by-line objective match. Check the official study guide.
FAQ
What is the Azure equivalent of Amazon Rekognition and Amazon Comprehend?
Rekognition content moderation (and Comprehend toxicity detection for text) maps to Azure AI Content Safety.
How does pricing compare between Amazon Rekognition and Amazon Comprehend and Azure AI Content Safety?
AWS: Per image (Rekognition) or per text unit (Comprehend). Azure: Per image and per text record, with a free tier. Check the official pricing pages for current rates.
Which certification exams cover this topic?
AWS Certified AI Practitioner (AIF-C01); Microsoft Certified – Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate (AI-103).