Best Biodiversity Monitoring Software in 2026: The Buyer's Shortlist
The best biodiversity monitoring software for restoration and carbon projects in 2026, by method: survey forms, camera traps, sound, eDNA and insects.
What is the best biodiversity monitoring software in 2026?
The best biodiversity monitoring software in 2026 depends on your survey method. For survey forms and transects, KoboToolbox or ODK. For camera traps, Wildlife Insights. For sound, Arbimon or BirdNET. For eDNA, NatureMetrics. For night insects, Mothbox. To tie every detection to its site, visit and project records, Restoration Scope.
As of October 2026: facts about each tool come from its own website, documentation or code repository, linked in each entry, and were checked on October 19, 2026. Prices change; confirm them with the provider.
Key takeaways
- Choose by method, not by platform. No tool covers camera traps, sound, eDNA, insects and transects equally. Many projects pick one tool per method.
- Check the terms before commercial use. BirdNET's models are non-commercial, others' iNaturalist records default to a non-commercial licence, Wildlife Insights normally charges companies, and EarthRanger and Arbimon restrict some commercial uses. A carbon developer selling credits is usually a commercial user.
- Each standard sets its own rules. Plan Vivo's PV Nature requires an approved data analytics provider, and Verra's Nature Framework is now open to all projects. Field tools collect the data; each standard sets its monitoring, analysis and verification requirements.
- AI speeds identification, but someone reviews it. Image and sound models sort large volumes fast. Budget expert time to check a sample.
- Keep detections tied to sites and visits. A species list without where, when and how it was recorded can't show change over time.
What biodiversity monitoring software is (and what it isn't)
Biodiversity monitoring software helps a project record which species are present, where, and how that changes as land is restored. For restoration and carbon projects, it supports co-benefit claims, biodiversity credits, and reports to funders.
It covers five jobs:
- Survey design and sites: where each recorder, trap, transect or sample sits, and when it was deployed.
- Data capture: photos, sound, DNA samples, insect images or observer records from the field.
- Species identification: AI models, lab sequencing, or experts and community reviewers.
- Records over time: detections linked to sites, visits and methods across years, so change can be measured.
- Reporting and sharing: summaries for a standard, funder or buyer, and open data for GBIF.
It isn't a biodiversity standard or an index. Verra's Nature Framework, Verra's CCB Standards and Plan Vivo's PV Nature set what counts as a gain and who may verify it. Software can't make a survey design sound or prove that restoration caused a change; the study design does that. For how standards treat co-benefits, see our guide to carbon standards for nature projects.
How we chose these tools
We checked each tool on five criteria you can verify on its own website:
- Method: which survey method it handles: forms, citizen observations, camera traps, sound, eDNA, insects or patrols.
- AI species ID: whether it identifies species automatically, and how.
- Published price: whether its price is on its website, and the entry price.
- Commercial use: whether a for-profit project can use it under its published terms.
- Data you keep: whether it states an export, API or GBIF publishing.
We didn't score identification accuracy, ease of use or support, because we can't measure them fairly across methods. This is an editorial shortlist by method, not a ranking: tools are numbered from field observers to sensors to lab analysis, then credit-focused providers. Restoration Scope, our own product, comes last.
The best biodiversity monitoring software in 2026
Twelve tools, grouped by the survey method each is built for. "Best for" names the job we'd pick each for; we didn't test them against each other.
1. KoboToolbox, best for free transect and point-count forms
KoboToolbox is an open-source form builder and offline app, free for nonprofits on its Community plan. Other organisations pay from $25 a month, or $21 billed annually.
ODK is a similar open-source option, with ODK Cloud from $199 a month billed annually, or $249 month to month. Neither identifies species; observers record what they see.
Best suited for: teams with trained observers running bird point counts, vegetation plots or transects. You design the protocol and species lists yourself. See KoboToolbox vs Restoration Scope.
2. iNaturalist, best for free community observations
iNaturalist is a free nonprofit app where anyone photographs plants, animals and fungi; AI suggests a species and the community confirms it. Its public API returned more than 395 million observations and 600,000 species on October 19, 2026. Many Research Grade observations are shared with GBIF.
Best suited for: engaging local people and building a species list for a site. It isn't a controlled survey method, and while you own your own observations, others' records default to CC BY-NC, which blocks commercial reuse unless the observer chose CC BY or CC0.
3. Pl@ntNet, best for plant identification from photos
Pl@ntNet, from French research institutes, identifies plants from photos in a free app. Its API is free up to 500 identifications a day; Pro starts at €1,000 a year before tax, including 200,000 requests, then from €0.005 per identification; nonprofit science and education users can ask for free access. It publishes open data to GBIF.
Best suited for: checking species in planting and vegetation surveys, or adding plant ID to your own app. The app identifies single plants; a limited-access API beta identifies several species in plot photos, but it doesn't manage transects.
4. Wildlife Insights, best for camera-trap photos
Wildlife Insights, built with Google, stores and identifies camera-trap images. Its AI recognizes 1,295 species and flags blank images. It's free for unaffiliated individuals, academics, Indigenous groups and governments in developing economies; companies and other governments are normally expected to subscribe, priced by quote. Standard embargoes last up to 48 months, and qualifying projects can ask for longer.
Best suited for: projects running camera traps for mammals and ground birds. It supports images only, not video or sound, and uploading gives the platform and its core partners permission to use your data for derived products.
5. Arbimon, best for sound recordings at scale
Arbimon, from the nonprofit Rainforest Connection, stores and analyses recordings from any recorder, with AI species detection, soundscapes and pattern matching. The Free tier has no time limit but caps collaborators at five; a Pro tier adds more, with its price not published. Its public counter showed more than 7,000 projects on October 19, 2026. Its terms restrict some commercial uses, such as paid analysis for third parties, and RFCx offers commercial licences.
Best suited for: projects with passive acoustic recorders that want analysis in one hosted place. WeForest uses it to see how its restoration in Pontal, Brazil, affects biodiversity.
6. BirdNET, best free AI for bird sounds
BirdNET, from the Cornell Lab and Chemnitz University of Technology, identifies more than 11,000 species from sound. It's free and runs as an app or as Python and R packages on large sets of recordings.
Best suited for: teams with technical staff analysing their own recordings. Its models are licensed CC BY-NC-SA, so for-profit projects should ask the BirdNET team before commercial use.
7. Kaleidoscope Pro, best for bats and desktop sound analysis
Kaleidoscope Pro, from Wildlife Acoustics, sorts and identifies bat, bird and frog calls on a desktop. Pro costs $399 a year per user, a BirdNET version $49, and Lite is free. Bat auto-ID covers the US, Canada, the UK, Europe, South Africa and the Neotropics.
Best suited for: ecologists running bat surveys in those regions. It's a single-user desktop licence, not a shared project platform.
8. Mothbox, best low-cost insect monitoring
Mothbox is an open-source insect trap that lures night insects with UV light and photographs them. Free scripts detect and crop each insect with AI and suggest a taxonomic group, often the order in tropical work, then a person validates them. It costs about $450 in parts with factory-assembled electronics, or $550 to build entirely yourself, and runs about four nights per charge on its standard five-hour nightly schedule.
Best suited for: projects tracking insects as a sign of recovery, on a small budget. The processing runs locally; Mothbox has no hosted platform of its own, and we host its public project map.
9. NatureMetrics, best for eDNA surveys
NatureMetrics sells eDNA kits and lab analysis for water, soil and sediment, plus bioacoustics, with results in its Nature Intelligence Platform. Tests are priced per sample in its shop: targeted single-species tests from £205, and multi-species tests such as £335 for fungi in soil outside the UK and EU, or £485 for freshwater fish and vertebrates. Its acoustic service uses AI with human review. It names biodiversity credit verification and TNFD disclosure, and says it works with more than 600 organisations in 126 countries.
Best suited for: projects that need many species groups from few samples, or are preparing a biodiversity baseline for lender or buyer review. You pay per sample, and the analysis happens in its lab.
10. SMART and EarthRanger, best for protected-area patrols
SMART and
EarthRanger are free tools for protected-area teams: SMART for patrols, sightings and threats recorded on a phone, used at around 1,000 sites in more than 70 countries; EarthRanger for one live map of rangers, collared animals and sensors, in more than 80 countries. In October 2025 they formed the SERCA alliance to bring the two together; existing deployments continue.
Best suited for: conservation and REDD+ projects that patrol land and record wildlife and threats. SMART Survey also supports ecological surveys over time, and EarthRanger imports AI camera-trap identifications through integrations. EarthRanger's hosted service needs written permission for commercial use.
11. Okala, best for biodiversity credit verification support
Okala combines field surveys, bioacoustics, camera traps, eDNA and spatial analysis, with automated species classification and expert review, and hosts results on a dashboard that verifiers can audit, with CSV, JSON and GIS exports. Plan Vivo lists it as an approved data analytics provider for PV Nature. It now presents itself mainly as a nature advisory firm. Price not published.
Best suited for: projects pursuing biodiversity credits that need an approved analyst. Natural State and Nature Analytics are the other providers on Plan Vivo's list.
12. Restoration Scope, best for tying detections to sites, visits and project records
Restoration Scope (that's us) builds digital infrastructure for nature projects: we connect a team's field data, maps and workflows so they can see their operations and show funders credible evidence. For biodiversity, that means monitoring sites linked to survey visits and the people who ran them, species records and photos in one view, and recorded species grouped by IUCN threat status, beside the restoration and planting records of the same land.
We don't identify species or sell sensors; we import the outputs of tools like these into one project database. Pricing is a free demo, then a platform license plus implementation, quoted after a scoping call.
Best suited for: projects running several methods whose results sit in separate folders and platforms, and who want them joined to the sites and the restoration work. See Restoration Scope for biodiversity.
Side-by-side comparison
Checked on the five criteria above, from each tool's own website as of October 2026.
| Tool | Best for | Method | AI species ID | Published price | Commercial use | Data you keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 KoboToolbox | Transect forms | Forms | No | Yes, free for nonprofits; others from $21/month billed annually | Yes, paid plans | Yes, XLS, CSV, GeoJSON and media exports |
| iNaturalist | Community observations | Citizen observations | Yes, with community review | Yes, free | Partly, your own records yes; others' default CC BY-NC | Yes, API and GBIF |
| Pl@ntNet | Plant ID | Plant photos | Yes | Yes, API free to 500/day; Pro from €1,000/year | Yes, free to 500/day, paid above | Yes, API and GBIF |
| Wildlife Insights | Camera traps | Camera traps | Yes, 1,295 species | Partly, free for some users | Yes, normally by subscription | Yes, downloads |
| Arbimon | Sound at scale | Acoustics | Yes | Partly, free tier; Pro by quote | Partly, terms restrict some commercial uses | Yes, results exports; audio downloads capped by plan |
| BirdNET | Free bird sound AI | Acoustics | Yes, 11,000+ species | Yes, free | No, models CC BY-NC-SA without permission | Yes, local result files |
| Kaleidoscope Pro | Bats on desktop | Acoustics | Yes | Yes, $399/year | Yes | Yes, local CSV and audio files |
| Mothbox | Low-cost insects | Insect light traps | Partly, AI detection and group suggestions, human validation | Yes, about $450–550 in parts | Yes, open hardware | Yes, local files |
| NatureMetrics | eDNA | eDNA and acoustics | Lab for eDNA; AI with human review for sound | Yes, from £205/sample | Yes | Yes, Excel results tables |
| SMART and EarthRanger | Patrols | Patrols and sensors | Partly, via EarthRanger integrations | Yes, free | Partly, SMART yes; EarthRanger hosted needs permission | Yes, user-owned data |
| Okala | Credit verification | Mixed methods | Yes, with expert review | No | Yes | Yes, CSV, JSON and GIS exports |
 Restoration Scope | Joined sites, visits and records | Any, from other tools | No | No | Yes | Yes, CSV and geospatial exports |
Which tool fits your project
| Your situation | Start with | Add | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tropical reforestation with a bird and bat co-benefit claim | Acoustic recorders with Arbimon | BirdNET or Kaleidoscope for checks | Commercial terms of Arbimon and BirdNET |
| Mammals in a REDD+ or conservation area | Wildlife Insights | SMART or EarthRanger for patrols | Subscription fees for companies; EarthRanger's commercial terms |
| Insects as a sign of recovery | Mothbox | iNaturalist for community records | Validation time per night of photos |
| Baseline for a lender or buyer | NatureMetrics eDNA | Camera traps or sound for repeat visits | Per-sample cost over many years |
| Biodiversity credits under PV Nature | An approved provider such as Okala | Your own field methods | Choosing tools before the provider |
| Several methods, results in separate places | Restoration Scope | The method tools above | No published price; scoped per setup |
By role: ecologists usually own the method tools and identification review, MRV and monitoring leads the site and visit records, and community or field coordinators the forms and community observation apps.
What results look like
Our biodiversity work so far is with Mothbox, at the data end of insect monitoring:
Mothbox is a low-cost, open-source insect monitor. We host its public Mothbox Projects map of deployments, where Mothbox teams have analyzed more than 100,000 insects.
See all our partners.
How do you choose biodiversity monitoring software?
- Start from the claim. Decide what you need to show, to whom, and under which standard. That picks the species groups and the method.
- Fix the design before the tool. Sites, control areas and visit timing decide whether you can show change. Write them down first.
- Read the terms. If you sell credits, check that each model, platform and dataset allows your commercial use, and license your own observations openly if you want others to reuse them.
- Budget for review. AI cuts the sorting, but an expert still checks the identifications. Count those hours.
- Keep the context with every record. Site, date, method, device and observer belong with each detection, so results from different years and tools still compare.
For the wider monitoring stack, see restoration monitoring tools compared, and for field forms, field-data apps.
Talk through your biodiversity monitoring with us
If your camera-trap, sound, eDNA or survey results sit in separate folders and platforms, a short call is the quickest way to see whether we fit. We'll look at the methods you run, what your funder or standard asks for, and which tools above you already use. If one platform covers your method, we'll say so. If not, we'll show how your sites, visits and detections would look joined up. Book a call.
Frequently asked questions
What software do restoration projects use to monitor biodiversity?
Usually one tool per survey method. Survey forms run on KoboToolbox or ODK, camera-trap photos go to Wildlife Insights, sound recordings to Arbimon or BirdNET, eDNA samples to a lab such as NatureMetrics, and insect traps such as Mothbox come with their own scripts. A project database then ties every detection to its site and visit.
Which biodiversity method should a restoration project start with?
Start with the species groups your funder, buyer or standard cares about, and the skills your team has. Bird and bat sound recorders and camera traps run unattended and suit remote sites; transects and plant plots need trained observers; eDNA covers many groups from one sample but costs per sample.
Can a carbon project use free tools like BirdNET or iNaturalist commercially?
Check each licence and terms of service. BirdNET's models are licensed CC BY-NC-SA, so commercial use needs permission from its team. On iNaturalist you own your observations, but reusing other people's photos and records depends on the licence each one chose, CC BY-NC by default. Wildlife Insights normally expects companies to subscribe, and EarthRanger's and Arbimon's terms restrict some commercial uses. A carbon developer selling credits is usually a commercial user.
What do biodiversity credits need from monitoring software?
Data an independent party can audit. Verra opened its Nature Framework to all projects on January 1, 2026, and Plan Vivo's PV Nature standard requires biodiversity data analysis by an approved provider; its list names Nature Analytics, Natural State and Okala. Using one of these tools doesn't by itself make a project compliant with a biodiversity standard.
How much does biodiversity monitoring software cost?
Much of it is free, including iNaturalist, BirdNET, SMART, EarthRanger and Arbimon's free tier. Kaleidoscope Pro costs $399 a year, Pl@ntNet's Pro API from €1,000 a year, a Mothbox about $450 to $550 in parts, and NatureMetrics multi-species eDNA tests from £335 a sample. Budget for field time and hardware as well as software.
Can AI identify species reliably?
It speeds up the work but still needs review. Wildlife Insights' AI flags blank camera-trap images and suggests identifications across 1,295 species for review. Mothbox's workflow detects insects with AI and suggests a taxonomic group, often the order in tropical work, then a person validates them. Plan for an expert to check a sample of the results.
How do I share biodiversity data with GBIF?
Some tools do it for you. iNaturalist shares many Research Grade observations with GBIF, and Pl@ntNet publishes its open data there. Wildlife Insights publishes licensed public downloads rather than publishing to GBIF for you. For your own surveys, export records with species, place, date and method so they can be published later.
