What is a model?

Everything on the Explore page is a model someone has built and pushed to Replicate. For example, lucataco/remove-bg is a model. It was pushed to Replicate by lucataco.

In the world of machine learning, the word “model” can mean many different things depending on context. It can be the source code, trained weights, architecture, or some combination thereof. At Replicate, when we say “model” we’re referring to a trained, packaged, and published software program that accepts inputs and returns outputs.

How to build a model

Models on Replicate are built with Cog, an open-source tool that lets you package machine learning models in a standard, production-ready container. Using Cog, you can deploy your packaged model to Replicate.