# Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) vs OpenAI Sora API

> Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) has a score of 65.4 (B) against OpenAI Sora API's 9.7 (F). Both do video generate. The largest gap is security & auth, 80 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-04

Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) has a score of 65.4 (B) against OpenAI Sora API's 9.7 (F). Both do video generate. The largest gap is security & auth, 80 points.

- Alibaba Wan (Model Studio): grade B, 65.4/100, rank #173 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alibaba-wan.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/alibaba-wan.json
- OpenAI Sora API: grade F, 9.7/100, rank retired, not ranked. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-sora.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openai-sora.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) for reliability (+70), schema & documentation (+52), agent ergonomics (+63), security & auth (+80), payments & pricing (+20), maintenance & community (+62), transparency & trust (+12).

Pick OpenAI Sora API for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) | OpenAI Sora API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 0 | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) +70 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 15 | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) +52 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 0 | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) +63 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 80 | 0 | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) +80 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 0 | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 15 | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) +62 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 68 | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65.4 · B** | **9.7 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) | OpenAI Sora API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Alibaba Cloud | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/api/v1` | `https://api.openai.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (Wan 2.1 and 2.2 weights) | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-24 | none |
| Popularity | 18k stars | 32k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 1/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Alibaba Wan (Model Studio).** Wan 3.0 clips run 2 to 30 seconds at up to 1080p with audio on by default. Result URLs and task ids expire after 24 hours.

**OpenAI Sora API.** Six months' notice, from 24 March to 24 September 2026. Shut down on 2026-09-24, so every call fails.

## Before you call either

### Alibaba Wan (Model Studio)

1. Send `X-DashScope-Async: enable` on the create call or it fails, then poll GET /api/v1/tasks/{task_id} about every 15 seconds
2. Copy the video out within 24 hours. The URL and the task id both expire
3. Use the host from your workspace and region. A Singapore key won't work on a Beijing host
4. Don't resubmit a slow job. Poll it. Failed jobs aren't billed, so resubmit only after FAILED
5. Set `audio` false if you don't want sound. It's on by default for Wan 3.0

### OpenAI Sora API

1. Don't call /v1/videos. The Videos API was removed on 2026-09-24
2. Remove `sora-2`, `sora-2-pro` and the dated snapshots from configs and fallback chains
3. Pick another provider from this category. OpenAI has no video model on its API now

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