diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 5b870e9..3c3fc5a 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -6,3 +6,4 @@ __pycache__
 uv.lock
 *.pdf
 dist
+models/
diff --git a/commonforms/inference.py b/commonforms/inference.py
index f429049..1b2ebaa 100644
--- a/commonforms/inference.py
+++ b/commonforms/inference.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 from __future__ import annotations
 from ultralytics import YOLO
 from pathlib import Path
+from huggingface_hub import hf_hub_download
 
 from commonforms.utils import BoundingBox, Page, Widget
 from commonforms.form_creator import PyPdfFormCreator
@@ -10,6 +11,15 @@
 import pypdfium2
 
 
+# our mapping from (model_name, fast) to (repo_id, filename) for the huggingface hub
+models = {
+    ("FFDNET-S", True): ("jbarrow/FFDNet-S-cpu", "FFDNet-S.onnx"),
+    ("FFDNET-S", False): ("jbarrow/FFDNet-S", "FFDNet-S.pt"),
+    ("FFDNET-L", True): ("jbarrow/FFDNet-L-cpu", "FFDNet-L.onnx"),
+    ("FFDNET-L", False): ("jbarrow/FFDNet-L", "FFDNet-L.pt"),
+}
+
+
 class FFDNetDetector:
     def __init__(
         self, model_or_path: str, device: int | str = "cpu", fast: bool = False
@@ -32,11 +42,9 @@ def get_model_path(
         """
         model_upper = model_or_path.upper()
         if model_upper in ["FFDNET-S", "FFDNET-L"]:
-            extension = "onnx" if fast else "pt"
-            # load from the package - normalize to proper case
-            model_name = "FFDNet-S" if model_upper == "FFDNET-S" else "FFDNet-L"
-            model_path = Path(__file__).parent / "models" / f"{model_name}.{extension}"
-            print(f"using model: {model_path}")
+            # download the model, will just use the cached version if it already exists
+            repo_id, filename = models[(model_upper, fast)] 
+            model_path = hf_hub_download(repo_id=repo_id, filename=filename) 
         else:
             model_path = model_or_path
 
diff --git a/commonforms/models/FFDNet-L.onnx b/commonforms/models/FFDNet-L.onnx
deleted file mode 100644
index 02b3289..0000000
Binary files a/commonforms/models/FFDNet-L.onnx and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/commonforms/models/FFDNet-L.pt b/commonforms/models/FFDNet-L.pt
deleted file mode 100644
index eda3cc3..0000000
Binary files a/commonforms/models/FFDNet-L.pt and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/commonforms/models/FFDNet-S.onnx b/commonforms/models/FFDNet-S.onnx
deleted file mode 100644
index 3df113f..0000000
Binary files a/commonforms/models/FFDNet-S.onnx and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/commonforms/models/FFDNet-S.pt b/commonforms/models/FFDNet-S.pt
deleted file mode 100644
index 36d206e..0000000
Binary files a/commonforms/models/FFDNet-S.pt and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index b45954c..a4e46ec 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ urls = { Homepage = "https://github.com/jbarrow/commonforms" }
 dependencies = [
     "cryptography>=3.1",
     "formalpdf==0.1.5",
+    "huggingface-hub>=0.35.3",
     "onnx>=1.19.1",
     "onnxruntime>=1.23.1",
     "onnxslim>=0.1.71",
@@ -28,7 +29,7 @@ commonforms = "commonforms:main"
 packages = ["commonforms"]
 
 [tool.setuptools.package-data]
-commonforms = ["models/*.pt"]
+commonforms = ["models/*.pt", "models/*.onnx"]
 
 [dependency-groups]
 dev = [