FREE_ALTERNATIVES.md

🆓 100% Free Video Generation Alternatives

Best Free Options (No Cost!)

✅ Option 1: Google Colab (Recommended - Completely Free!)

Pros:

• ✅ 100% Free
• ✅ Free GPU access
• ✅ No credit card needed
• ✅ Run powerful models

How to Use:

1. Open this Colab notebook:

   • CogVideoX: https://colab.research.google.com/github/camenduru/CogVideoX-colab
   • Zeroscope: https://colab.research.google.com/github/camenduru/text-to-video-synthesis-colab

2. Click "Run All" (play button)

3. Wait for setup (2-3 minutes)

4. Enter your prompt in the notebook

5. Generate video - runs on Google's free GPU!

6. Download the video

Models Available on Colab:

• CogVideoX-5B
• CogVideoX-2B
• Zeroscope V2 XL
• AnimateDiff
• And more!

---

✅ Option 2: Hugging Face Inference API (Free Tier)

Pros:

• ✅ Free tier available
• ✅ No credit card for basic use
• ✅ Official API
• ✅ Reliable

Setup:

1. Get Free HF Token:

   • Go to https://huggingface.co/settings/tokens
   • Create a free account
   • Generate a token (free tier)

2. Use Inference API (free quota):

   from huggingface_hub import InferenceClient
   
   client = InferenceClient(token="your_free_token")
   
   video = client.text_to_video(
       "A dog running in a park",
       model="THUDM/CogVideoX-2b"
   )
   

Free Quota:

• Limited requests per month
• Slower than paid
• But completely free!

---

✅ Option 3: Local Generation (Your Own Computer)

If you have a GPU (NVIDIA):

1. Install dependencies:

   pip install diffusers transformers accelerate
   

2. Run locally:

   from diffusers import CogVideoXPipeline
   import torch
   
   pipe = CogVideoXPipeline.from_pretrained(
       "THUDM/CogVideoX-2b",
       torch_dtype=torch.float16
   )
   pipe.to("cuda")
   
   video = pipe("A dog running in a park").frames[0]
   

Pros:

• ✅ Completely free
• ✅ Unlimited generations
• ✅ No API limits

Cons:

• ❌ Requires good GPU (8GB+ VRAM)
• ❌ Slower on CPU

---

✅ Option 4: Free Hugging Face Spaces (When Available)

These spaces are free but may be slow/sleeping:

1. CogVideoX-2B: https://huggingface.co/spaces/THUDM/CogVideoX-2B
2. CogVideoX-5B: https://huggingface.co/spaces/zai-org/CogVideoX-5B-Space
3. Stable Video Diffusion: https://huggingface.co/spaces/multimodalart/stable-video-diffusion

How to use:

• Visit the space
• Enter prompt
• Click generate
• Wait (may take time if space is sleeping)
• Download video

---

🎯 Recommended Free Workflow

For Best Results (100% Free):

1. Use Google Colab for high-quality generations

   • Best quality
   • Free GPU
   • No limits

2. Use HF Spaces for quick tests

   • Instant (when awake)
   • No setup needed
   • May be slow

3. Use Local if you have GPU

   • Unlimited
   • Private
   • Fast

---

🚀 Setting Up Google Colab Backend

I can create a backend that connects to your own Google Colab instance!

How it works:

1. Run a Colab notebook (free GPU)
2. Expose it via ngrok (free)
3. Connect your frontend to it
4. Generate unlimited videos!

Want me to set this up?

---

📊 Comparison

Method	Cost	Speed	Quality	Limits
Google Colab	FREE	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	Session time
HF Spaces	FREE	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	May sleep
HF Inference API	FREE	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	Monthly quota
Local GPU	FREE	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	None
Replicate	$0.10/video	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	Pay per use

---

🎬 Quick Start: Google Colab (5 minutes)

1. Open: https://colab.research.google.com/github/camenduru/CogVideoX-colab

2. Click: Runtime → Run all

3. Wait: 2-3 minutes for setup

4. Scroll down to the generation cell

5. Enter your prompt

6. Run the cell

7. Download your video!

That's it! Completely free, no credit card, unlimited use! 🎉

---

💡 Best Free Option for Your App

I recommend creating a Google Colab + ngrok backend:

1. Run model on Colab (free GPU)
2. Expose via ngrok (free tunnel)
3. Connect your frontend
4. Generate unlimited videos!

Want me to create this setup for you? It's 100% free and will work with your existing frontend!