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Scikit-learn VS TensorFlow

Compare Scikit-learn VS TensorFlow and see what are their differences

Scikit-learn logo Scikit-learn

scikit-learn (formerly scikits.learn) is an open source machine learning library for the Python programming language.

TensorFlow logo TensorFlow

TensorFlow is an open-source machine learning framework designed and published by Google. It tracks data flow graphs over time. Nodes in the data flow graphs represent machine learning algorithms. Read more about TensorFlow.
  • Scikit-learn Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-05-06
  • TensorFlow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-19

Scikit-learn features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Scikit-learn provides a high-level interface for common machine learning algorithms, making it easy for beginners and professionals to implement complex models with minimal coding.
  • Extensive Documentation and Community Support
    The library has comprehensive documentation and a large, active community. This makes it easy to find tutorials, examples, and solutions to common problems.
  • Integration with Other Libraries
    Scikit-learn integrates well with other scientific computing libraries such as NumPy, SciPy, and pandas, allowing for seamless data manipulation and analysis.
  • Variety of Algorithms
    It offers a wide array of machine learning algorithms for tasks such as classification, regression, clustering, and dimensionality reduction.
  • Performance
    Designed with performance in mind, many of the algorithms are optimized and some even support multicore processing.

Possible disadvantages of Scikit-learn

  • Limited Deep Learning Support
    Scikit-learn is primarily focused on traditional machine learning algorithms and does not offer support for deep learning models, unlike libraries like TensorFlow or PyTorch.
  • Not Ideal for Large-Scale Data
    While Scikit-learn performs well for moderate-sized datasets, it may not be the best choice for extremely large datasets or big data applications.
  • Lack of Online Learning Algorithms
    The library has limited support for online learning algorithms, which are useful for scenarios where data arrives in a stream and model needs to be updated incrementally.
  • Less Flexibility in Customization
    It can be less flexible compared to lower-level libraries when highly customized or specific implementations are needed.
  • Dependency Overhead
    Scikit-learn relies on several other Python libraries like NumPy and SciPy, which might require users to manage multiple dependencies.

TensorFlow features and specs

  • Comprehensive Ecosystem
    TensorFlow offers a complete ecosystem for end-to-end machine learning, covering everything from data preprocessing, model building, training, and deployment to production.
  • Community and Support
    TensorFlow boasts a large and active community, as well as extensive documentation and tutorials, making it easier for beginners to learn and experts to get help.
  • Flexibility
    TensorFlow supports a wide range of platforms such as CPUs, GPUs, TPUs, mobile devices, and embedded systems, providing flexibility depending on the user's needs.
  • Integrations
    TensorFlow integrates well with other Google products and services, including Google Cloud, facilitating seamless deployment and scaling.
  • Versatility
    TensorFlow can be used for a wide range of applications from simple neural networks to more complex projects, including deep learning and artificial intelligence research.

Possible disadvantages of TensorFlow

  • Complexity
    TensorFlow can be challenging to learn due to its complexity and the steep learning curve, particularly for beginners.
  • Performance Overhead
    Although TensorFlow is powerful, it can sometimes exhibit performance overhead compared to other, lighter frameworks, leading to longer training times.
  • Verbose Syntax
    The code in TensorFlow tends to be more verbose and less intuitive, which can make writing and debugging code more cumbersome relative to other frameworks like PyTorch.
  • Compatibility Issues
    Frequent updates and changes can lead to compatibility issues, requiring significant effort to keep libraries and dependencies up to date.
  • Mobile Deployment
    While TensorFlow supports mobile deployment, it is less optimized for mobile platforms compared to some other specialized frameworks, leading to potential performance drawbacks.

Scikit-learn videos

Learning Scikit-Learn (AI Adventures)

More videos:

  • Review - Python Machine Learning Review | Learn python for machine learning. Learn Scikit-learn.

TensorFlow videos

What is Tensorflow? - Learn Tensorflow for Machine Learning and Neural Networks

More videos:

  • Tutorial - TensorFlow In 10 Minutes | TensorFlow Tutorial For Beginners | Deep Learning & TensorFlow | Edureka
  • Review - TensorFlow in 5 Minutes (tutorial)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Scikit-learn and TensorFlow)
Data Science And Machine Learning
Data Science Tools
80 80%
20% 20
AI
0 0%
100% 100
Python Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Scikit-learn and TensorFlow

Scikit-learn Reviews

15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Scikit-learn is an open source machine learning library for Python that's built on the SciPy and NumPy scientific computing libraries, plus Matplotlib for plotting data. It supports both supervised and unsupervised machine learning and includes numerous algorithms and models, called estimators in scikit-learn parlance. Additionally, it provides functionality for model...

TensorFlow Reviews

7 Best Computer Vision Development Libraries in 2024
From the widespread adoption of OpenCV with its extensive algorithmic support to TensorFlow's role in machine learning-driven applications, these libraries play a vital role in real-world applications such as object detection, facial recognition, and image segmentation.
10 Python Libraries for Computer Vision
TensorFlow and Keras are widely used libraries for machine learning, but they also offer excellent support for computer vision tasks. TensorFlow provides pre-trained models like Inception and ResNet for image classification, while Keras simplifies the process of building, training, and evaluating deep learning models.
Source: clouddevs.com
25 Python Frameworks to Master
Keras is a high-level deep-learning framework capable of running on top of TensorFlow, Theano, and CNTK. It was developed by François Chollet in 2015 and is designed to provide a simple and user-friendly interface for building and training deep learning models.
Source: kinsta.com
Top 8 Alternatives to OpenCV for Computer Vision and Image Processing
TensorFlow is an open-source software library for dataflow and differentiable programming across a range of tasks such as machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing. It provides excellent support for deep learning models and is widely used in several industries. TensorFlow offers several pre-trained models for image classification, object detection,...
Source: www.uubyte.com
PyTorch vs TensorFlow in 2022
There are a couple of notable exceptions to this rule, the most notable being that those in Reinforcement Learning should consider using TensorFlow. TensorFlow has a native Agents library for Reinforcement Learning, and Deepmind’s Acme framework is implemented in TensorFlow. OpenAI’s Baselines model repository is also implemented in TensorFlow, although OpenAI’s Gym can be...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Scikit-learn should be more popular than TensorFlow. It has been mentiond 31 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Scikit-learn mentions (31)

  • Must-Know 2025 Developer’s Roadmap and Key Programming Trends
    Python’s Growth in Data Work and AI: Python continues to lead because of its easy-to-read style and the huge number of libraries available for tasks from data work to artificial intelligence. Tools like TensorFlow and PyTorch make it a must-have. Whether you’re experienced or just starting, Python’s clear style makes it a good choice for diving into machine learning. Actionable Tip: If you’re new to Python,... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • 🚀 Launching a High-Performance DistilBERT-Based Sentiment Analysis Model for Steam Reviews 🎮🤖
    Scikit-learn (optional): Useful for additional training or evaluation tasks. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Essential Deep Learning Checklist: Best Practices Unveiled
    How to Accomplish: Utilize data splitting tools in libraries like Scikit-learn to partition your dataset. Make sure the split mirrors the real-world distribution of your data to avoid biased evaluations. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • How to Build a Logistic Regression Model: A Spam-filter Tutorial
    Online Courses: Coursera: "Machine Learning" by Andrew Ng EdX: "Introduction to Machine Learning" by MIT Tutorials: Scikit-learn documentation: https://scikit-learn.org/ Kaggle Learn: https://www.kaggle.com/learn Books: "Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras & TensorFlow" by Aurélien Géron "The Elements of Statistical Learning" by Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, and Jerome Friedman By... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Link Prediction With node2vec in Physics Collaboration Network
    Firstly, we need a connection to Memgraph so we can get edges, split them into two parts (train set and test set). For edge splitting, we will use scikit-learn. In order to make a connection towards Memgraph, we will use gqlalchemy. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
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TensorFlow mentions (7)

  • Creating Image Frames from Videos for Deep Learning Models
    Converting the images to a tensor: Deep learning models work with tensors, so the images should be converted to tensors. This can be done using the to_tensor function from the PyTorch library or convert_to_tensor from the Tensorflow library. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Need help with a Tensorflow function
    So I went to tensorflow.org to find some function that can generate a CSR representation of a matrix, and I found this function https://www.tensorflow.org/api_docs/python/tf/raw_ops/DenseToCSRSparseMatrix. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Help: Slow performance with windows 10 compared to Ubuntu 20.04 with TF2.7
    Can anyone offer up an explanation for why there is a performance difference, and if possible, what could be done to fix it. I'm using the installation guidelines found on tensorflow.org and installing tf2.7 through pip using an anaconda3 env. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • [Question] What are the best tutorials and resources for implementing NLP techniques on TensorFlow?
    I don't have much experience with TensorFlow, but I'd recommend starting with TensorFlow.org. Source: about 3 years ago
  • [Question] What are the best tutorials and resources for implementing NLP techniques on TensorFlow?
    I have looked at this TensorFlow website and TensorFlow.org and some of the examples are written by others, and it seems that I am stuck in RNNs. What is the best way to install TensorFlow, to follow the documentation and learn the methods in RNNs in Python? Is there a good tutorial/resource? Source: about 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Scikit-learn and TensorFlow, you can also consider the following products

Pandas - Pandas is an open source library providing high-performance, easy-to-use data structures and data analysis tools for the Python.

PyTorch - Open source deep learning platform that provides a seamless path from research prototyping to...

OpenCV - OpenCV is the world's biggest computer vision library

Keras - Keras is a minimalist, modular neural networks library, written in Python and capable of running on top of either TensorFlow or Theano.

NumPy - NumPy is the fundamental package for scientific computing with Python

IBM Watson Studio - Learn more about Watson Studio. Increase productivity by giving your team a single environment to work with the best of open source and IBM software, to build and deploy an AI solution.