Side-by-side comparison of free tiers, pricing changes, and stability. Catalogue dates here run to 2026-08-15.
Quick Verdict: Groq offers ultra-fast LLM inference on custom LPU hardware with free API access. Hugging Face is the ML model hub with inference credits and a vast open-source ecosystem. Groq is for speed-optimized LLM inference; Hugging Face is for model discovery and flexible inference.
Fast LLM inference on Groq's LPU hardware. Free plan: gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b and Qwen3.8 27B, each at 30 requests a minute, 1,000 requests and 200,000 tokens a day, plus Whisper speech-to-text at 2,000 requests a day. Llama 3.3 70B and Llama 3.1 8B left the free and developer plans on 2026-08-16 and are Enterprise-only. Developer plan prices per 1M tokens: gpt-oss-120b $0.15/$0.60; gpt-oss-20b $0.075/$0.30.
ML model hub. Free users get $0.10 a month of Inference Providers credits (subject to change); Inference Providers serves 200+ models, and extra usage requires a credits purchase. PRO ($9/month) gets $2.00 a month. Free accounts get 100GB of private storage and best-effort public storage; substantial storage needs PRO, Team or Enterprise.When we last read the page we cite for this offer, on 2026-09-13, we refused the change we considered recording because it named no figure that had moved, and refusing a change is not a confirmation of the terms above, so we cannot confirm these terms today.
Key Differences
Focus: Groq is purely an LLM inference API optimized for speed (custom LPU hardware). Hugging Face is a comprehensive ML platform (model hub, datasets, Spaces, inference API).
Free tier: Groq's free plan allows 30 RPM, 1,000 requests and 200K tokens a day per model. Hugging Face offers $0.10/month in free inference credits with access to 200+ models.
Speed: Groq's LPU hardware delivers industry-leading token generation speed — often 5-10x faster than GPU-based inference. Hugging Face inference speed varies by provider.
Model selection: Hugging Face provides access to 200+ models across providers. Groq serves a short list of open-weight models on its hardware; the free plan covers gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b and Qwen3.8 27B.
Pricing Change History
Groq
reducedeffective 2026-08-16medium impact
Groq shut down Llama 3.1 8B and Llama 3.3 70B on its free and developer plans. On the free plan Llama 3.1 8B had allowed 14,400 requests and 500,000 tokens a day; the free chat models left (gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b and a Qwen 27B model) allow 1,000 requests and 200,000 tokens a day each. Source ↗
Hugging Face
No recorded pricing changes for Hugging Face.
Our Recommendation
Choose Groq if you need the fastest possible LLM inference, are building latency-sensitive applications, or want a simple API for popular open models.
Choose Hugging Face if you need access to the broadest model selection, want to host your own models, or need the full ML development platform (datasets, training, Spaces).
Groq offers ultra-fast LLM inference on custom LPU hardware with free API access. Hugging Face is the ML model hub with inference credits and a vast open-source ecosystem. Groq is for speed-optimized LLM inference; Hugging Face is for model discovery and flexible inference.
What is Groq's free tier?
Groq offers a Free plan: Fast LLM inference on Groq's LPU hardware. Free plan: gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b and Qwen3.8 27B, each at 30 requests a minute, 1,000 requests and 200,000 tokens a day, plus Whisper speech-to-text at 2...
What is Hugging Face's free tier?
Hugging Face offers a Free plan: ML model hub. Free users get $0.10 a month of Inference Providers credits (subject to change); Inference Providers serves 200+ models, and extra usage requires a credits purchase. PRO ($9/month) gets ...
Should I choose Groq or Hugging Face?
Choose Groq if you need the fastest possible LLM inference, are building latency-sensitive applications, or want a simple API for popular open models. Choose Hugging Face if you need access to the broadest model selection, want to host your own models, or need the full ML development platform (datasets, training, Spaces).
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