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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
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
TensorFlow
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
6th
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 September 2025, in the AI Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Hugging Face is 12.1%, up from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TensorFlow is 5.9%, up from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Hugging Face12.1%
TensorFlow5.9%
Other82.0%
AI Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

SwaminathanSubramanian - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Dan Bryant - PeerSpot reviewer
A strong solution for providing insight into machine learning strategies
I'm not a professional with machine learning. Early on, I was working with data scientists and built a platform for some old-school data scientists to turn around their models faster, and they were focused on electric prices. Based on that experience and my understanding of our value, I'm researching all the machine learning tools. I realized I would have to be a specialist in any of them, and my main skillset is in systems engineering and data engines. I look forward to being an analytics specialist. In real life, I would be better off hiring a professional because when I decide which tool I want to use for what job, I could hire that professional. They would be valuable to me across the whole of what we do. It's kinda of what I do when I build hardware and new products or do version upgrades. I hire a team just for production that are experts in their particular field, so I get production-quality pieces. At that point, my internal team can add the necessary analytics or automation. Hopefully, anyone getting the solution already knows what they will use it for. If they're starting from scratch, I strongly recommend hiring a consultant. I rate TensorFlow an eight out of ten because, for my intents and purposes, I don't know what else one can use to get into the machine learning game if you're going to export models.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My preferred aspects are natural language processing and question-answering."
"Overall, the platform is excellent."
"Hugging Face provides open-source models, making it the best open-source and reliable solution."
"I would rate this product nine out of ten."
"The tool's most valuable feature is that it's open-source and has hundreds of packages already available. This makes it quite helpful for creating our LLMs."
"It is stable."
"The solution is easy to use compared to other frameworks like PyTorch and TensorFlow."
"There are numerous libraries available, and the documentation is rich and step-by-step, helping us understand which model to use in particular conditions."
"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."
"It is also totally Open-Source and free. Open-source applications are not good usually. but TensorFlow actually changed my view about it and I thought, "Look, Oh my God. This is an open-source application and it's as good as it could be." I learned that TensorFlow, by sharing their own knowledge and their own platform with other developers, it improved the lives of many people around the globe."
"I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. I am not a developer but more of an account manager. I can find what I want with TensorFlow. I haven’t contacted technical support for any issues. Since TensorFlow is vastly documented on the internet, I usually find some good websites where people exchange their views about the solution and apply that."
"It's got quite a big community, which is useful."
"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."
"The available documentation is extensive and helpful."
"Google is behind TensorFlow, and they provide excellent documentation. It's very thorough and very helpful."
"The most valuable feature of TensorFlow is deep learning. It is the best tool for deep learning in the market."
 

Cons

"I've worked on three projects using Hugging Face, and only once did we encounter a problem with the code. We had to use another open-source embedding from OpenAI to resolve it. Our team has three members: me, my colleague, and a team leader. We looked at the problem and resolved it."
"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."
"Most people upload their pre-trained models on Hugging Face, but more details should be added about the models."
"It can incorporate AI into its services."
"The initial setup can be rated as a seven out of ten due to occasional issues during model deployment, which might require adjustments."
"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."
"Hugging Face could improve by implementing a search engine or chat bot feature similar to ChatGPT."
"Implementing a cloud system to showcase historical data would be beneficial."
"It doesn't allow for fast the proto-typing. So usually when we do proto-typing we will start with PyTorch and then once we have a good model that we trust, we convert it into TensorFlow. So definitely, TensorFlow is not very flexible."
"There are a lot of problems, such as integrating our custom code. In my experience model tuning has been a bit difficult to edit and tune the graph model for best performance. We have to go into the model but we do not have a model viewer for quick access."
"TensorFlow deep learning takes a lot of computation power. The more systems you can use, the easier it is. That's a good ability, if you can make a system run immediately at the same time on the same task, it's much faster rather than you having one system running which is slower. Running systems in parallel is a complex situation, but it can improve. There is a lot of work involved."
"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."
"In terms of improvement, we always look for ways they can optimize the model, accelerate the speed and the accuracy, and how can we optimize with our different techniques. There are various techniques available in TensorFlow. Maintaining accuracy is an area they should work on."
"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."
"It currently offers inbuilt functions, however, having the ability to implement custom libraries would enhance its usefulness for enterprise-level applications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"So, it's requires expensive machines to open services or open LLM models."
"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 solution is open source."
"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."
"It is open-source software. You don't have to pay all the big bucks like Azure and Databricks."
"We are using the free version."
"I am using the open-source version of TensorFlow and it is free."
"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."
"TensorFlow is free."
"I rate TensorFlow's pricing a five out of ten."
"The solution is free."
"I did not require a license for this solution. It a free open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Hugging Face?
My preferred aspects are natural language processing and question-answering.
What needs improvement with Hugging Face?
It is challenging to suggest specific improvements for Hugging Face, as their platform is already very well-organized and efficient. However, they could focus on cleaning up outdated models if they...
What is your primary use case for Hugging Face?
I am working on AI with various large language models for different purposes such as medicine and law, where they are fine-tuned with specific requirements. I download LLMs from Hugging Face for th...
What do you like most about TensorFlow?
It empowers us to seamlessly create and deploy machine learning models, offering a versatile solution for implementing sophisticated environments and various types of AI solutions.
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...
 

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: July 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.