Hugging Face Spaces

Conditional free route other

Researched from public pages — no submission was run · sources read 2026-09-26. Rules change — recheck the platform's own pages before submitting.

What the free route requires

Static HTML Spaces are free for everyone
Gradio and Docker Spaces run on compute and require a paid plan (PRO for personal accounts, Team/Enterprise for orgs)
Exception: free personal accounts in good standing can host up to 2 Gradio Spaces running on ZeroGPU
Requires a Hugging Face account — /new-space redirects to login/signup

Must publish a real ML-powered demo or app — a Space is a deployed application backed by a git repo, not a promotional listing
Choose an SDK at creation: Gradio, Docker, or static HTML
Space code lives in a public (or protected/private) git repo on the Hub — public Spaces expose source code to everyone
Outbound network requests are limited to ports 80, 443 and 8080

A Hugging Face account (free signup at huggingface.co/join)
Working app code for the chosen SDK (app.py for Gradio, Dockerfile, or static index.html)
License choice and a public-visibility decision — public Spaces are fully open and clonable
Secrets/variables to set in Space Settings (never hard-code keys; a secrets scanner flags them)

Sign in and open huggingface.co/new-space (or 'Create new Space' on huggingface.co/spaces)
Name the Space, pick the SDK (static HTML is the free path), set visibility to Public
Push code to the Space's git repo — each commit triggers a rebuild and restart
Set any required variables/secrets in Settings
Verify the Space runs (free CPU Basic sleeps after inactivity)
The public Space appears at huggingface.co/spaces/<user>/<name> and the app at <space>.hf.space

Plan gate: as of the docs read, Gradio/Docker Spaces need a paid plan — only static Spaces (and ≤2 ZeroGPU Gradio Spaces) are free
Free CPU Basic hardware sleeps when unused — the app may appear down until it wakes
Public Spaces publish source code and are clonable — do not ship anything you can't open-source
A 'protected' visibility (app public, source hidden) requires PRO/Team plans
A pure marketing page with no working app invites takedowns; this is a hosting platform, not a directory

A public Space page exists at huggingface.co/spaces/<owner>/<name> and the running app responds on its embed URL

Whether a SaaS product without an ML demo has any legitimate fit (likely none — Spaces are for deployed apps)
Current PRO price needed for non-static Spaces