Microsoft Presidio alternative: a managed PII API with restorable replacements
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Presidio is a strong open-source toolkit. It becomes a service only after you add recognisers, hosting and operations. ShinrAI is that service: detection, realistic replacement and local restoration through one API, hosted in Germany or on your infrastructure.
What Presidio is
Microsoft Presidio is an open-source toolkit for detecting and anonymising personal data in text. Its analyzer finds entities with pattern recognisers and NLP models. Its anonymizer offers replace, mask, hash and encrypt operators, and you can add custom operators. Presidio is a library and a set of containers: you install it, extend it and run it yourself.
That design is the reason many teams choose it, and the reason many teams later look for an alternative. Presidio gives you building blocks. It does not give you a finished, measured, operated service.
Where Presidio needs assembly
- Recognisers and models. Coverage depends on the recognisers and NLP models you install and tune. Languages beyond the defaults, and formats such as German addresses or IBANs, need your own work and your own evaluation.
- Restoration. Presidio can encrypt and decrypt values. A consistent, restorable replacement across a conversation, with a mapping your application controls, is a custom implementation.
- Hosting and operations. You run the containers, scale them, patch them, monitor them and keep them inside the right jurisdiction.
- Documents and pipelines. PDF and DOCX pipelines, job handling and integration with workflow tools need additional code.
- Budget. The toolkit is free. Hosting, implementation, support and evaluation are not.
What ShinrAI adds
| Topic | Presidio | ShinrAI |
|---|---|---|
| Replacement text | Replace, mask, hash and encrypt operators; custom operators supported. | Realistic, consistent replacements that keep the text useful for an AI model; masking and labels also available. |
| Restoration | Decrypt supported; the application manages keys and custom mappings. | The response includes a mapping. Your application keeps it and restores original values locally. |
| Languages | Depends on installed recognisers and NLP models. | 15 model locales, including German, with published per-locale evaluations. Hebrew is beta. |
| Hosting | Self-hosted library and containers; you operate the service. | Managed API on STACKIT in Germany, or your own infrastructure with signed offline activation. |
| Documents | Document pipelines need assembly. | Document jobs for PDF and DOCX through the API, with the redacted PDF back; integration guides for n8n, Nextcloud and other tools. |
| Pricing | Open-source toolkit; budget for hosting, implementation and support. | Published monthly plans from €39 and non-expiring packs; optional onboarding by certified partners. |
Presidio statements are taken from the source-linked comparison page, reviewed on 09.09.2026.
Measured, not claimed
ShinrAI 1.5 reaches a median strict-span F1 of 95.5 across 15 locales, evaluated on 3,000 business, medical and administrative texts. On the published 27-message customer-chat set, scored with overlap matching, ShinrAI 1.5 scores 81.3 and Presidio scores 75.6. Azure GA scores 81.1 on the same set, and the Azure preview model leads it with 88.8. That set's gold has no date or age labels, so every date or age that ShinrAI 1.5 finds counts as a false positive; on the updated gold with those labels, 1.5 scores 85.3.
The chat set is small, and the two evaluations use different scoring. Read them as evidence for a pilot, not as a guarantee for your documents. Versions, run details and methodology are on the benchmark board.
German accuracy matters for most of our customers. The per-locale results are listed on the languages and data categories page, together with the 21 categories and 29 subtype classes that the model detects.
Migration steps from Presidio
- List your entities. Write down the Presidio recognisers you rely on. Map each one to a ShinrAI category on the coverage page. Note gaps on both sides.
- Choose the protection. Presidio operators map to ShinrAI actions:
surrogate(the presetpseudonymize) for realistic stand-ins,maskfor characters,labelfor entity tags andreplacefor a fixed text. - Run a pilot on your own texts. Paste representative samples into the live demo, then send the same texts through the API with a Starter key. Compare precision and recall against your Presidio output.
- Move restoration into your application. Ask for the mapping (
"output": {"include": ["mapping"]}), store it with the request, and restore values in the AI response locally. Restoration does not use API records. - Pick the deployment. Use the managed API in Germany, or an offline pack with signed activation for disconnected environments.
- Size the plan. Records count per 1,000 code points; Batch processing costs half. The estimator turns your volumes into a plan.
The getting-started guide shows the first request. The native PII API v2 guide covers detection, protection and restoration in detail.
Start with a measured pilot
Starter costs €39 per month for 50,000 records and needs no contract negotiation. Larger workloads move to Team, Business or Platform, or to a non-expiring pack.
Frequently asked questions
Is ShinrAI a drop-in replacement for Presidio?
No. Presidio is a library with its own Python API; ShinrAI is an HTTP API. The migration maps your recognisers to ShinrAI categories and your anonymizer operators to ShinrAI actions. Most teams complete this in a pilot of a few days.
Can I keep Presidio for some entities?
Yes. Many teams keep custom Presidio recognisers for internal identifiers and use ShinrAI for personal data in natural language. Both run in the same pipeline; ShinrAI protects the text before it reaches the AI model.
Where does ShinrAI process my data?
The managed API runs on STACKIT in Germany. Synchronous requests are processed in memory without a request-content archive or model training. Job data and API sessions stay only as long as their job or session needs them, by default at most 24 hours. You can also run ShinrAI on your own infrastructure with signed offline activation. The page Data handling and retention lists every retention period.
How does ShinrAI compare with Presidio on quality?
On the published 27-message chat set, scored with overlap matching, ShinrAI 1.5 scores 81.3 and Presidio 75.6; that set's gold has no date or age labels, and on the updated gold with those labels ShinrAI 1.5 scores 85.3. Across 15 locales, ShinrAI 1.5 reaches a median strict-span F1 of 95.5. Both results are published with methodology; run a pilot on your own texts before you decide.
What does ShinrAI cost compared with Presidio?
Presidio is free to download; you pay for hosting, implementation and support. ShinrAI publishes monthly plans from €39 for 50,000 records and non-expiring packs from 5 million records. Onboarding by certified partners is optional.
Can I get my money back if ShinrAI does not fit?
Not the right fit? Write to support within 14 days of your first plan payment and we refund it in full. Once per company, if you used no more than 10 % of the plan's monthly records.