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Hugging FacevsScaleway

Hugging Face vs Scaleway: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence

Full comparison of Hugging Face and Scaleway — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Rates sourced from public APIs — verify before use.

Hugging Face

Serverless Inference API — 150K+ open models including Llama, Qwen, and FLUX

Hugging Face is the central hub for open-source AI models, hosting 150K+ models across text, image, audio, and video. Its Serverless Inference API provides pay-per-request access to popular open-weight models including Llama 3.3 70B, Qwen 2.5 72B, and FLUX.1-dev — without managing infrastructure. Ideal for developers who want open-weights models without self-hosting.

Open-model inferencePrototypingImage generationResearchFine-tuned model hosting
Open-weight hostHosts open weights

Scaleway

B300-SXM GPU instances — French sovereign cloud, Generative APIs with 1M free tokens

Scaleway is a French cloud provider offering GPU compute and LLM inference with the strongest EU data sovereignty credentials. The Generative APIs catalog includes GLM-5.2 (€1.80/€5.50), Mistral Medium 3.5 (€1.50/€7.50), Qwen3.8-27B (€0.60/€3.30), DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (€0.40/€0.80), gpt-oss-120B (€0.15/€0.60), and Llama 3.3 70B (€0.90/€0.90). All new customers get 1M free tokens. GPU instances include B300-SXM, H100, L40S, and L4.

European complianceFrench data sovereigntyGDPROpen-sourceGPU computeDedicated inference
Open-weight hostHosts open weights

Key metric comparison

Hugging Face
Scaleway
Cheapest input ($/1M)

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Cheapest output ($/1M)

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Peak throughput

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Best latency (TTFT)

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Intelligence score

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Context window

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Live token pricing

Strengths and weaknesses

Hugging Face

Largest open-model hub — 150K+ models across all modalities
Serverless Inference API requires no infrastructure management
Access to Llama, Qwen, Mistral, FLUX, and hundreds of other open-weight models
Free tier available for low-volume experimentation
Deep ecosystem: datasets, Spaces, model cards, and community fine-tunes
Serverless API has cold-start latency for less popular models
No proprietary frontier models — all hosted models are open-weight
Rate limits on free tier; dedicated endpoints required for production SLAs
Pricing varies by model and can be less predictable than fixed-rate APIs

Scaleway

1M free tokens for all new customers — best free tier in Europe
B300-SXM GPU instances — latest NVIDIA Blackwell hardware in Europe
Live model catalog: GLM-5.2, Mistral Medium 3.5, Qwen3.8-27B, DeepSeek V4 Flash, gpt-oss-120B
French cloud — strongest EU data sovereignty credentials
Serverless and dedicated deployment options
Low latency (<200ms TTFT) for European end-users
Smaller model catalog than US-based inference providers
Lower throughput than speed-optimised providers
Less developer tooling than OpenAI or Anthropic

Key differentiators

Hugging Face

The world's largest open-model hub — Serverless Inference API gives instant pay-per-request access to Llama, Qwen, FLUX, and 150K+ other open-weight models without any infrastructure setup.

Scaleway

The strongest European data sovereignty credentials — French company, French data centres, 1M free tokens for new customers, B300-SXM GPU instances, and <200ms TTFT for European users.

Frequently asked questions

Hugging Face FAQs

What is the Hugging Face Inference API?

The Hugging Face Serverless Inference API provides pay-per-request access to popular open-weight models including Llama 3.3 70B, Qwen 2.5 72B, and FLUX.1-dev. No infrastructure management required — just an API key.

How much does the Hugging Face API cost?

Serverless Inference API pricing varies by model. Llama 3.3 70B and Qwen 2.5 72B are $0.59/$0.79 per 1M input/output tokens. FLUX.1-dev is $0.025 per image. A free tier is available for low-volume use. See huggingface.co/pricing for current rates.

Can I use my own fine-tuned model on Hugging Face?

Yes. You can deploy your own fine-tuned model on Hugging Face Inference Endpoints (dedicated) or upload it to the Hub for Serverless Inference if it meets the supported architecture requirements.

Scaleway FAQs

What models does Scaleway Generative APIs offer?

Scaleway's Generative APIs catalog includes GLM-5.2 (€1.80/€5.50), Mistral Medium 3.5 (€1.50/€7.50), Qwen3.8-27B (€0.60/€3.30), DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (€0.40/€0.80), gpt-oss-120B (€0.15/€0.60), Llama 3.3 70B (€0.90/€0.90), and more. All prices per 1M tokens.

Does Scaleway offer free tokens?

Yes. Every new Scaleway customer gets 1,000,000 free tokens to use across any Generative APIs model. Billing starts from the 1,000,001st token.

What GPU hardware does Scaleway offer in 2026?

Scaleway offers B300-SXM GPU instances (latest NVIDIA Blackwell), H100 SXM and PCIe, L40S, and L4 GPU instances. B300-SXM is one of the first Blackwell deployments available in Europe.

Provider resources

Hugging Face

Provider page
Website
PricingDocs

Scaleway

Provider page
Website
PricingDocs

Hugging Face — Serverless Inference API — 150K+ open models including Llama, Qwen, and FLUX

Hugging Face is the central hub for open-source AI models, hosting 150K+ models across text, image, audio, and video. Its Serverless Inference API provides pay-per-request access to popular open-weight models including Llama 3.3 70B, Qwen 2.5 72B, and FLUX.1-dev — without managing infrastructure. Ideal for developers who want open-weights models without self-hosting.

The world's largest open-model hub — Serverless Inference API gives instant pay-per-request access to Llama, Qwen, FLUX, and 150K+ other open-weight models without any infrastructure setup.

Scaleway — B300-SXM GPU instances — French sovereign cloud, Generative APIs with 1M free tokens

Scaleway is a French cloud provider offering GPU compute and LLM inference with the strongest EU data sovereignty credentials. The Generative APIs catalog includes GLM-5.2 (€1.80/€5.50), Mistral Medium 3.5 (€1.50/€7.50), Qwen3.8-27B (€0.60/€3.30), DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (€0.40/€0.80), gpt-oss-120B (€0.15/€0.60), and Llama 3.3 70B (€0.90/€0.90). All new customers get 1M free tokens. GPU instances include B300-SXM, H100, L40S, and L4.

The strongest European data sovereignty credentials — French company, French data centres, 1M free tokens for new customers, B300-SXM GPU instances, and <200ms TTFT for European users.

Key strengths compared

Hugging Face

  • Largest open-model hub — 150K+ models across all modalities
  • Serverless Inference API requires no infrastructure management
  • Access to Llama, Qwen, Mistral, FLUX, and hundreds of other open-weight models
  • Serverless API has cold-start latency for less popular models
  • No proprietary frontier models — all hosted models are open-weight

Scaleway

  • 1M free tokens for all new customers — best free tier in Europe
  • B300-SXM GPU instances — latest NVIDIA Blackwell hardware in Europe
  • Live model catalog: GLM-5.2, Mistral Medium 3.5, Qwen3.8-27B, DeepSeek V4 Flash, gpt-oss-120B
  • Smaller model catalog than US-based inference providers
  • Lower throughput than speed-optimised providers

Key weaknesses compared

Hugging Face

  • Serverless API has cold-start latency for less popular models
  • No proprietary frontier models — all hosted models are open-weight
  • Rate limits on free tier; dedicated endpoints required for production SLAs
  • Pricing varies by model and can be less predictable than fixed-rate APIs

Scaleway

  • Smaller model catalog than US-based inference providers
  • Lower throughput than speed-optimised providers
  • Less developer tooling than OpenAI or Anthropic

Provider category context

Hugging Face is a open source host, founded in 2016. Scaleway is a cloud, founded in 1999. The category difference means these providers serve partially overlapping use cases — compare the model lists and pricing tables above to find the best fit for your specific workload.

How to choose between them

Choose Hugging Face if you need Open-model inference. Choose Scaleway if you need 1m free tokens for all new customers — best free tier in europe. For high-volume production workloads, run a cost comparison using the token pricing table above with your actual prompt/completion token ratio — the cheapest provider depends heavily on your input-to-output token ratio.