Muse.ai (now rebranded as Skiv) is a cloud video hosting platform with powerful AI search. Upload your videos, and viewers can search inside them by objects, text, speech, and sounds. It includes an embeddable player with 4K playback and unlimited bandwidth. FrameQuery is a desktop search tool for production teams. Frames and audio are extracted on your device and sent for analysis, then discarded once analysis completes, with your search index stored locally. Search by scenes, faces, objects, and transcripts entirely offline. Choose Muse.ai to host and share searchable video; choose FrameQuery to search your own footage during production.
| Feature | FrameQuery | Muse.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Search for creators/editors | Host + search for viewers |
| Architecture | Hybrid desktop app | Cloud video hosting |
| Pricing | From $19/mo | From $16/mo (80GB) |
| AI search | Faces, objects, scenes, transcripts | Objects, text, actions, speech, sounds |
| Format support | 50+ native formats | Common web formats |
| NLE export | FCPXML, EDL, LosslessCut | |
| Offline capable | ||
| Face recognition | ||
| Embeddable player | ||
| 4K playback & hosting | ||
| Unlimited bandwidth | ||
| Upload required | Frames & audio only (discarded after) |
Muse.ai offers impressive AI search across hosted videos. It can identify objects, on-screen text, actions, speech, and even sounds. Viewers can search inside videos directly from an embedded player, making it excellent for content libraries, training platforms, and media portals.
FrameQuery searches across visual scenes, transcripts, detected faces, and objects on your local machine. It adds face recognition that Muse.ai lacks, and supports 50+ professional formats natively. Searches return millisecond results because the index lives on your hardware, not in the cloud.
Muse.ai pricing is based on storage and seats: from $16/month (80GB, 1 seat) to $100/month (1TB, 10 seats), with unlimited bandwidth included on all plans. You pay for hosting capacity because Muse.ai stores and serves your video.
FrameQuery pricing is based on indexing hours: Free (search only), Starter at $19/month (10 hours), Pro at $45/month billed annually (50 hours with timecoded comments, approval workflows, and cloud-hosted index sharing with access management), and Max at $190/month billed annually (300 hours). A Studio tier with unlimited hours is available via a custom quote for larger archives. Index sharing via local export, Google Drive, Dropbox, or NAS is free on every plan. There are no ongoing storage fees; extracted data is discarded after analysis and your search index lives locally.
FrameQuery natively supports 50+ video formats including professional camera formats like R3D, BRAW, ProRes, and CinemaDNG, with no transcoding or uploading required. It exports search results to FCPXML, EDL, and LosslessCut markers for seamless NLE integration.
Muse.ai supports common web video formats and handles transcoding on upload. Its strength is on the output side: an embeddable player with 4K playback, unlimited bandwidth, and in-player search. It's built for distribution, not production.
FrameQuery extracts frames and audio on your device and sends only those for analysis. Your originals never leave your machine, and the extracted data is discarded the moment analysis completes. Your search index lives locally on your machine, and once indexed, search works entirely offline. This matters for NDA-protected projects and sensitive content. Muse.ai requires uploading your full videos to their cloud permanently for hosting, search indexing, and playback.
They serve different purposes. Muse.ai is a video hosting platform with AI search built in, ideal for publishing searchable video content to viewers. FrameQuery is a desktop search tool for production teams who need to find moments in their own footage. Frames and audio are extracted on your device and sent for analysis, nothing else - your originals never leave your machine. You might use both: Muse.ai for distribution and FrameQuery for production.
Both offer strong AI search. Muse.ai detects objects, text, actions, speech, and sounds within hosted videos. FrameQuery searches visual scenes, transcripts, detected faces, and objects across your local library. FrameQuery adds face recognition and supports 50+ professional formats natively. Muse.ai adds sound recognition and embeddable search for viewers.
Your originals never leave your machine. FrameQuery extracts frames and audio on your device and sends only those for analysis, and the extracted data is discarded the moment analysis completes. The search index lives on your machine, so once indexed, search is entirely local and offline. Muse.ai requires uploading your full videos to their cloud for permanent hosting and search.
No. FrameQuery is a search and indexing tool for production teams, not a video hosting platform. If you need to host and share searchable videos with viewers or embed a player on your website, Muse.ai is the right choice. FrameQuery is designed for searching your own footage during production and post-production workflows.