ComparisonLast reviewed 2026-07-26

HoopBrief vs Dartfish

Dartfish is one of the oldest names in sports video analysis, a multi-sport tagging, annotation, and biomechanical review platform used across federations, universities, and national teams. It is also one of the few vendors in this category that publishes its prices: myDartfish plans are listed publicly, starting around 7 EUR/month for Mobile and running to roughly 20, 80, and 180 EUR/month for the 360, Live S, and Pro S tiers on annual billing, with a 15-day free trial. Larger institutional and university deployments are still quoted. The real tradeoff is not price, it is generality. Dartfish knows video, not basketball, so a human supplies every basketball conclusion. HoopBrief does one sport and produces the conclusion directly, in about five seconds, at $9.99 to $999/month.

  • Published pricing, $9.99 to $999 per month
  • About 5 seconds to a scouting brief
  • No film upload, no tagging, no analyst

The free scout needs no account and no card.

Side-by-side snapshot

FeatureHoopBriefDartfish
Pricing$9.99/mo (Starter), $999/mo (Pro), publishedPublished per-seat: myDartfish from ~7 EUR/mo to ~180 EUR/mo (annual billing); institutional deployments quoted
Free trial7-day trial, no card required15-day free trial
Sport specificityBasketball onlyMulti-sport and clinical movement analysis
Core outputBasketball matchup decisionsTagged, annotated video you produce
Basketball intelligence built inYesNo, the analyst supplies it
Time to insight~5 secondsManual tagging and annotation per clip
Biomechanical / technique analysisNoYes, a genuine strength

Where HoopBrief wins

Basketball-native output. Coverage decisions and tendencies, not a general-purpose tagging canvas.
No manual tagging. Dartfish's value only appears after someone annotates the video.
Basketball reasoning included. Dartfish also publishes its prices, so this is not a transparency win, it is a scope one: you are paying for a toolkit either way, and HoopBrief ships the analysis with it.
Opponent data you do not have to record. Grounded in NBA tracking and play-by-play.

Where Dartfish wins

Technique and biomechanics. Frame-by-frame movement analysis, angle measurement, and side-by-side comparison that HoopBrief has no equivalent for.
Multi-sport. One platform across an entire athletic department or federation.
Your own athletes' film. Dartfish analyzes whatever video you give it; HoopBrief does not ingest user video.
Long institutional track record. Deeply embedded in federations and university programs.

The verdict

HoopBrief is best for

Basketball coaches and players who want sport-specific matchup conclusions rather than a general video-analysis toolkit they must operate themselves.

Dartfish is best for

Multi-sport departments and federations, and anyone whose real need is technique or biomechanical analysis of their own athletes on video.

Try it on a real matchup

Pick an attacker and a defender and read what HoopBrief writes: the attack plan, the guard plan, and the read when the first option is gone. Free, no account.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Dartfish cost?

Dartfish is one of the few vendors in this category that publishes pricing. Its myDartfish plans are listed publicly on annual billing, starting from roughly 7 EUR/month for Mobile, about 20 EUR/month for 360, about 80 EUR/month for Live S, and about 180 EUR/month for Pro S, with a 15-day free trial. Prices are shown in several currencies and vary with the plan's feature set. Larger university and federation deployments are still quoted. HoopBrief publishes pricing too, at $9.99/month for Starter and $999/month for Pro.

Is Dartfish good for basketball scouting?

It can be used for it, but it is a general video-analysis platform rather than a basketball scouting product. It gives you tagging and annotation tools; all of the basketball reasoning, what the opponent tends to do and how to counter it, still comes from the coach. HoopBrief produces that reasoning as its output.

Can HoopBrief analyze a player's shooting form?

No. HoopBrief works from NBA play-by-play, tracking, matchup, and shot-location data, not from uploaded video, so it cannot do frame-by-frame technique or biomechanical review. Dartfish is genuinely better for that specific job.

Start scouting

Starter is $9.99/mo, Pro is $999/mo, both published. Every account starts with a 7-day trial, no card required.

See what is in each plan

Compare other tools

All comparisons

Most coaches shortlist three or four of these at once. Each page uses the same format, including where the other tool wins.

Related reading

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