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Hugging Face vs TensorFlow comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

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

Hugging Face
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
14
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 February 2026, in the AI Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Hugging Face is 7.2%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TensorFlow is 5.4%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Hugging Face7.2%
TensorFlow5.4%
Other87.4%
AI Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

SwaminathanSubramanian - PeerSpot reviewer
Director/Enterprise Solutions Architect, Technology Advisor at Kyndryl
Versatility empowers AI concept development despite the multi-GPU challenge
Regarding scalability, I'm finding the multi-GPU aspect of it challenging. Training the model is another hurdle, although I'm only getting into that aspect currently. Organizations are apprehensive about investing in multi-GPU setups. Additionally, data cleanup is a challenge that needs to be resolved, as data must be mature and pristine.
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

"The most valuable features are the inference APIs as it takes me a long time to run inferences on my local machine."
"I appreciate the versatility and the fact that it has generalized many models."
"My preferred aspects are natural language processing and question-answering."
"Hugging Face provides open-source models, making it the best open-source and reliable solution."
"We have seen improved productivity and time saved from using Hugging Face; for a task that would have taken six hours, it saved us five hours, and we completed it in one hour with the plug-and-play integration of inference and everything, using the few lines of code that Hugging Face provides."
"There are numerous libraries available, and the documentation is rich and step-by-step, helping us understand which model to use in particular conditions."
"I would rate this product nine out of ten."
"The product is reliable."
"Our clients were not aware they were using TensorFlow, so that aspect was transparent. I think we personally chose TensorFlow because it provided us with more of the end-to-end package that you can use for all the steps regarding billing and our models. So basically data processing, training the model, evaluating the model, updating the model, deploying the model and all of these steps without having to change to a new environment."
"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."
"What made TensorFlow so appealing to us is that you could run it on a cluster computer and on a mobile device."
"TensorFlow provides Insights into both data and machine learning strategies."
"Optimization is very good in TensorFlow. There are many opportunities to do hyper-parameter training."
"TensorFlow is easy to implement and offers inbuilt functions for various tasks."
"The available documentation is extensive and helpful."
"It is easy to use and learn."
 

Cons

"Implementing a cloud system to showcase historical data would be beneficial."
"Regarding scalability, I'm finding the multi-GPU aspect of it challenging. Training the model is another hurdle, although I'm only getting into that aspect currently."
"The area that needs improvement would be the organization of the materials. It could be clearer and more systematic. It would be good if the layout was clear and we could search the models easily."
"The initial setup can be rated as a seven out of ten due to occasional issues during model deployment, which might require adjustments."
"Hugging Face could improve by implementing a search engine or chat bot feature similar to ChatGPT."
"Most people upload their pre-trained models on Hugging Face, but more details should be added about the models."
"I believe Hugging Face has some room for improvement. There are some security issues. They provide code, but API tokens aren't indicated. Also, the documentation for particular models could use more explanation. But I think these things are improving daily. The main change I'd like to see is making the deployment of inference endpoints more customizable for users."
"Access to the models and datasets could be improved."
"It currently offers inbuilt functions, however, having the ability to implement custom libraries would enhance its usefulness for enterprise-level applications."
"The process of creating models could be more user-friendly."
"It would be nice to have more pre-trained models that we can utilize within layers. I utilize a Mac, and I am unable to utilize AMD GPUs. That's something that I would definitely be like to be able to access within TensorFlow since most of it is with CUDA ML. This only matters for local machines because, in Azure, you can just access any GPU you want from the cloud. It doesn't really matter, but the clients that I work with don't have cloud accounts, or they don't want to utilize that or spend the money. They all see it as too expensive and want to know what they can do on their local machines."
"Enhancements could include increasing use cases and improving the accuracy of previously built models in TensorFlow. For instance, when we run certain models, the computing power of laptops becomes high."
"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."
"There are connection issues that interrupt the download needed for the data sets. We need to prepare them ourselves."
"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."
"TensorFlow Lite only outputs to C."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Hugging Face is an open-source solution."
"We do not have to pay for the product."
"I recall seeing a fee of nine dollars, and there's also an enterprise option priced at twenty dollars per month."
"The tool is open-source. The cost depends on what task you're doing. If you're using a large language model with around 12 million parameters, it will cost more. On average, Hugging Face is open source so you can download models to your local machine for free. For deployment, you can use any cloud service."
"So, it's requires expensive machines to open services or open LLM models."
"The solution is open source."
"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."
"The solution is free."
"I did not require a license for this solution. It a free open-source solution."
"TensorFlow is free."
"It is open-source software. You don't have to pay all the big bucks like Azure and Databricks."
"I rate TensorFlow's pricing a five out of ten."
"I am using the open-source version of TensorFlow and it is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Hugging Face?
Everything is pretty much sorted in Hugging Face, but it could be improved if there was an AI chatbot or an AI assistant in Hugging Face platform itself, which can guide you through the whole platf...
What is your primary use case for Hugging Face?
My main use case for Hugging Face is to download open-source models and train on a local machine. We use Hugging Face Transformers for simple and fast integration in our applications and AI-based a...
What advice do you have for others considering Hugging Face?
We have seen improved productivity and time saved from using Hugging Face; for a task that would have taken six hours, it saved us five hours, and we completed it in one hour with the plug-and-play...
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 Hugging Face vs. TensorFlow and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,515 professionals have used our research since 2012.