Classroom platforms¶
Supplemental reference · Browse supplements · Current report
Compare bounded options for development, notebooks, scoring and demonstrations. Open each resource’s limits before choosing it. GPU access is variable; competition hosting is not a GPU notebook.
Benchmark first · Options by degree · Cloud credits
22 resources
Classroom 50
Workable successor for GitHub Classroom assignment distribution, repositories, submissions, feedback and grading.
Access: Free, open-source assignment workflow · evaluate before adoption
Limits and sources
Fifty Foundation project and hosted app are not ours. Requires a Team/Enterprise organization; check education eligibility. No additional Codespaces compute; Actions grading has separate quotas. ACCESS remains the CPU/GPU classroom route.
Classroom 50: project and license · Classroom 50: prerequisites and education eligibility · Classroom 50: managing Actions cost · Codespaces · free personal-account quotas
Codabench
Prediction scoring, reproducible code benchmarks and common test environments.
Access: Free benchmark hosting; compute depends on queue
Limits and sources
Shared CPU scoring jobs ≤20 minutes. Organizers supply queues for code submissions and all GPU workers; no GPU notebook or whole-class reservation.
Codabench · free benchmark hosting and bounded CPU scoring · Codabench · organizer-supplied CPU / GPU workers · Codabench · shared and dedicated queues
Kaggle Community Competitions
Prediction-file competitions with live leaderboards; judged hackathons for open-ended projects.
Access: Free self-service hosts and participants
Limits and sources
Training happens elsewhere or in separately limited notebooks. Restricted-email competitions disable notebooks by default; community hosting has no hands-on support.
Kaggle · no-cost Community Competitions · Kaggle · competition access and notebook limits
CodeGrade
Programming labs with browser editing, immediate autograding and instructor feedback.
Access: Advertised free for courses ≤50 students
Limits and sources
Check free-plan execution/LMS limits and roster scope. No verified free GPU entitlement or campus deployment; grading records need approved retention.
ChaGrade
Challenge-linked individual/team homework and instructor grading beyond leaderboard scores.
Access: Adjacent project; current free entitlement unverified
Limits and sources
Live page labels version 0.1 / Work In Progress. Support, quotas and current Codabench integration need verification; not a ready college-wide baseline.
EvalAI
Custom prediction/code evaluation and organizer-controlled remote workers.
Access: Hosted service paid; open-source self-hosting
Limits and sources
Hosted plans $125–850/month; remote evaluation $100/month plus own compute. Self-hosting requires funded staff, infrastructure and storage. No verified hosted free tier.
EvalAI · paid hosted challenge plans · EvalAI · open-source self-hosting
CodaLab Competitions
Historical challenge service; migrate compatible competition bundles to Codabench.
Access: Retired at end of 2025; successor available
Limits and sources
New account required; leaderboards do not transfer automatically. Preserve submissions/results separately. Separate CodaLab Worksheets is not covered.
CodaLab Competitions · phased out in 2025 · Codabench · CodaLab migration boundaries
GitHub Codespaces
Reproducible Python/R/SQL labs, small analysis and code development before submission.
Access: Bounded free personal CPU quotas
Limits and sources
60 two-core hours/month, or 90 for verified students; storage quota and machine sizes matter. No generally available GPU; not continuous application hosting.
Codespaces · free personal-account quotas · Codespaces · verified student benefit · Codespaces · machine learning and GPU boundary
Kaggle Notebooks
Checkpointed small-model GPU experiments and training for a competition.
Access: Free accelerator notebooks; quota varies
Limits and sources
Check each account’s GPU quota, available hardware, session timer and saved disk. No reserved class seats or distributed/long-running training promise.
Kaggle · free accelerator notebooks · Kaggle · floating weekly GPU quota
Free Google Colab
Short shared notebooks, CPU analysis and opportunistic accelerator exercises.
Access: Base free tier remains available
Limits and sources
GPU access and resource/session limits fluctuate. Free Colab is separate from the closed new-signup education Pro offer; never promise class GPU availability.
mybinder.org
Small Python/R notebooks launched from a reproducible repository, including metadata/text workshops.
Access: Free ephemeral CPU sessions
Limits and sources
1–2 GB RAM; ten-minute idle shutdown; aims for ≤6 hours or one CPU-hour; 100 concurrent sessions per repo. Download work; no GPU or persistent workspace promise.
Lightning AI Studio
DS/MLIS notebook preparation and small tests within actual credit balance.
Access: One free CPU Studio; GPU credit amount and expiry vary
Limits and sources
Four-hour CPU restart boundary; first 10 GB storage free. Do not promise a fixed monthly GPU grant or count paid academic discounts as free compute.
Lightning AI · billing and storage scope · Lightning AI student documentation and free CPU workflow
Hugging Face ZeroGPU / Spaces
Short Gradio inference demos and model-behavior comparisons; static exhibits on free Static Spaces.
Access: Five GPU minutes/day for signed-in Free users
Limits and sources
Two own ZeroGPU Spaces only for eligible personal accounts ≥30 days old. Shared queues and Gradio constraints; organization hosting paid. Ordinary compute-backed Space creation also needs a paid plan.
Hugging Face ZeroGPU · short shared GPU demos · Hugging Face Spaces · current creation and persistence boundaries
cuda.live
Tiny CUDA kernel/compiler demonstrations independent of the Codabench workflow.
Access: 15 executions/month; bounded CUDA exercises
Limits and sources
Advertised T4 16 GB, five runs per 15 minutes; per-execution allowance is not GPU-hours. Existing October 8 verification, no reserved class capacity.
Modal
DS: a small pinned training/inference run. MLIS: public-corpus OCR, embeddings or retrieval experiments.
Access: Conditional recurring credit · $30/workspace/month; three Starter seats
Limits and sources
Payment method required; GPU, CPU and memory share credits. Set explicit usage and net-spend limits. Shared Endpoints tokens cost extra. Academic grant is an application, not funding in hand.
Modal Starter pricing and Shared Endpoints boundary · Modal billing: payment method required · Modal budgets and out-of-pocket spend limits · Modal academic credit grants
Beam
DS/MLIS component hosting if funded; open-source runtime may warrant later engineering assessment.
Access: Paid / historical free claim · $20/month Developer includes $20 credits; one seat
Limits and sources
June free-$30 comparison is stale against current direct plan table. Prepaid deployments need credits; warm/idle settings can bill. BYOC is not free compute.
Beam current plan table · Beam runtime and prepaid credit billing · Beam earlier free Developer comparison (historical)
Cerebrium
DS model serving; MLIS public-corpus embeddings or transcription.
Access: Paid usage / possible trial · Free Hobby subscription; no recurring compute credit verified
Limits and sources
Free plan fee and included storage do not make execution free. Trials are discretionary/time-limited and may transition to paid billing.
Cerebrium Hobby subscription versus metered compute · Cerebrium trial terms
Paperspace Gradient
Small DS training and public/synthetic MLIS corpus notebooks.
Access: Bounded free machines · Free CPU / M4000 GPU subject to availability; 5 GB
Limits and sources
Six-hour free-session maximum, one-hour idle stop, one free notebook at once; free notebooks are public. Check old GPU/runtime fit and actual signup/payment requirements.
DigitalOcean Paperspace: free machine and storage eligibility · Paperspace notebook free-session duration · Paperspace free machines: visibility and inactivity
Saturn Cloud
Potential DS and MLIS notebook alternative, pending an authorized account check.
Access: Unconfirmed free lead · Landing page advertises 150 compute hours/month, no card
Limits and sources
150 compute hours is not verified as 150 GPU-hours. Current pricing emphasizes paid hosted resources; reconcile device allowance, storage, inactivity and new-account access.
Saturn Cloud free-compute landing claim · Saturn Cloud current hosted pricing
Runpod
Funded DS/MLIS jobs with explicit checkpoint and external export.
Access: Paid comparison · Prepaid compute; no recurring free allocation verified
Limits and sources
Pod launch needs credit; stopped storage still bills and can be deleted when funds run out. Not a zero-cash fallback or preservation repository.
Replicate
DS model-behavior comparison; MLIS controlled metadata/transcription demonstrations.
Access: Limited model trial · Select-model demonstrations, then billing
Limits and sources
No stable free monthly grant verified. Private deployments can bill setup and idle time. A model API does not replace arbitrary CUDA training.
Hugging Face Inference Providers
DS inference evaluation and MLIS embeddings/metadata tasks when funded.
Access: Paid API on Free accounts · No included monthly API credits for Free users
Limits and sources
Separate from ZeroGPU/Spaces. Current API pricing overrides older free-credit snippets; no historical change date established.
Hugging Face Inference Providers: current free-account credits