Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Caffe vs TensorFlow comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Caffe
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
27th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
TensorFlow
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the AI Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Caffe is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TensorFlow is 5.8%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
TensorFlow5.8%
Caffe0.9%
Other93.3%
AI Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

RL
Machine/Deep Learning Engineer at UpWork Freelancer
Speeds up the development process but needs to evolve more to stay relevant
In the future, they should expand text processing, for a recommendation system, or to support some other models as well — that would be great. The concept of Caffe is a little bit complex because it was developed and based in C++. They need to make it easier for a new developer, data scientist, or a new machine or deep learning engineer to understand it. You can't work with metrics and vectors as Python does. Python is a vector-oriented language, but Caffe is not. When you deal with memory in C++, you have to allocate the data you will use in memory. You have to manage everything in C++. Conversely, in Python, you don't need to do that since everything is abstract and done by Python itself. It depends on every use case or your requirement goals. Some clients will require you to use Caffe because maybe their projects are old and they want to continue with Caffe. Others are comfortable with their current situation or they are afraid of migrating to another library. From my point of view, they need to make it easier for a new developer to use it. They should incorporate Python API to make it richer, overall.
TJ
Owner at Go knowledge
Has good stability, but the process of creating models could be more user-friendly
The platform integrates well with other tools, especially Python, which we use to create models. These models can be deployed on mobile devices, which perfectly suits our requirements. It supports our AI-driven initiatives very well by producing AI models, which is its primary function. I recommend it for those seeking specialized scripting. However, it's important to consider other options as well. It is better suited for specialists in the field and is less user-friendly than general tools like Excel. I rate it overall at six out of ten. While it is a powerful tool, other software options are slightly simpler for training models.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Caffe has helped our company become up-to-date in the market and has helped us speed up the development process of our projects."
"Edge computing has some limited resources but TensorFlow has been improving in its features. It is a great tool for developers."
"It is easy to use and learn."
"Optimization is very good in TensorFlow. There are many opportunities to do hyper-parameter training."
"TensorFlow improves my organization because our clients get a lot of investment from their investors and we are progressively improving the products. Every six months we release new features."
"TensorFlow provides Insights into both data and machine learning strategies."
"The most valuable features are the frameworks and the functionality to work with different data, even when we have a certain quantity of data flowing."
"TensorFlow is easy to implement and offers inbuilt functions for various tasks."
"It's got quite a big community, which is useful."
 

Cons

"The concept of Caffe is a little bit complex because it was developed and based in C++. They need to make it easier for a new developer, data scientist, or a new machine or deep learning engineer to understand it."
"We encountered version mismatch errors while using the product."
"I would love to have a user interface like a programming interface. You need to have a set of menus where you can put things together in a graphical interface. The complete automation of the integration of the modules would also be interesting. It’s more like plumbing as opposed to a fully automated environment."
"There are connection issues that interrupt the download needed for the data sets. We need to prepare them ourselves."
"Personally, I find it to be a bit too much AI-oriented."
"I know this is out of the scope of TensorFlow, however, every time I've sent a request, I had to renew the model into RAM and they didn't make that prediction or inference. This makes the point for the request that much longer. If they could provide anything to help in this part, it will be very great."
"However, if I want to change just one thing in the implementation of TensorFlow functions I have to copy everything that they wrote and I change it manually if indeed it can be amended. This is really hard as it's written in C++ and has a lot of complications."
"JavaScript is a different thing and all the websites and web apps and all the mobile apps are built-in JavaScript. JavaScript is the core of that. However, TensorFlow is like a machine learning item. What can be improved with TensorFlow is how it can mix in how the JavaScript developers can use TensorFlow."
"TensorFlow Lite only outputs to C."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I rate TensorFlow's pricing a five out of ten."
"The solution is free."
"It is open-source software. You don't have to pay all the big bucks like Azure and Databricks."
"I am using the open-source version of TensorFlow and it is free."
"I did not require a license for this solution. It a free open-source solution."
"I think for learners to deploy a project, you can actually use TensorFlow for free. It's just amazing to have an open-source platform like TensorFlow to deploy your own project. Here in Russia no one really cares about licenses, as it is totally open source and free. My clients in the United States were also pleased to learn when they enquired, that licensing is free."
"We are using the free version."
"TensorFlow is free."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which AI Development Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
879,927 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TensorFlow?
I am not familiar with the pricing setup cost and licensing.
What needs improvement with TensorFlow?
Providing more control by allowing users to build custom functions would make TensorFlow a better option. It currently offers inbuilt functions, however, having the ability to implement custom libr...
What is your primary use case for TensorFlow?
I've used TensorFlow for image classification tasks, object detection tasks, and OCR.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Airbnb, NVIDIA, Twitter, Google, Dropbox, Intel, SAP, eBay, Uber, Coca-Cola, Qualcomm
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Hugging Face, Google and others in AI Development Platforms. Updated: January 2026.
879,927 professionals have used our research since 2012.