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
28th
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 February 2026, in the AI Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Caffe is 1.0%, up from 0.2% 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 (%)
TensorFlow5.4%
Caffe1.0%
Other93.6%
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."
"It is open-source, and it is being worked on all the time. You don't have to pay all the big bucks like Azure and Databricks. You can just use your local machine with the open-source TensorFlow and create pretty good models."
"What made TensorFlow so appealing to us is that you could run it on a cluster computer and on a mobile device."
"Optimization is very good in TensorFlow. There are many opportunities to do hyper-parameter training."
"The most valuable feature of TensorFlow is deep learning. It is the best tool for deep learning in the market."
"The available documentation is extensive and helpful."
"Edge computing has some limited resources but TensorFlow has been improving in its features. It is a great tool for developers."
"TensorFlow is a framework that makes it really easy to use for deep learning."
"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."
 

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."
"It would be cool if TensorFlow could make it easier for companies like us to program for running it across different hyperscalers."
"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."
"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."
"It currently offers inbuilt functions, however, having the ability to implement custom libraries would enhance its usefulness for enterprise-level applications."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is hard to integrate with the GPUs."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"I rate TensorFlow's pricing a five out of ten."
"It is open-source software. You don't have to pay all the big bucks like Azure and Databricks."
"TensorFlow is free."
"The solution is free."
"I am using the open-source version of TensorFlow and it is free."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which AI Development Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

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.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.