# Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) vs Runway API

> Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) has a score of 65.4 (B) against Runway API's 61.1 (C). Both do video generate. The largest gap is security & auth, 29 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) has a score of 65.4 (B) against Runway API's 61.1 (C). Both do video generate. The largest gap is security & auth, 29 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
- Runway API: grade C, 61.1/100, rank #232 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/runway.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/runway.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) for security & auth (+29), maintenance & community (+15), transparency & trust (+23).

Pick Runway API for reliability (+5), schema & documentation (+26), agent ergonomics (+12).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) | Runway API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 75 | Runway API +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 93 | Runway API +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 75 | Runway API +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 80 | 51 | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) +29 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 62 | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) +15 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 57 | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) +23 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **65.4 · B** | **61.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) | Runway API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Alibaba Cloud | Runway |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/api/v1` | `https://api.dev.runwayml.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable 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 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 18k stars | 20 stars, 56k npm/wk, 67k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 4/5 (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.

**Runway API.** OpenAPI 3.1, llms.txt and Markdown copies of every docs page. Gen-3 Alpha Turbo and Gen-4 Aleph were removed on 2026-07-30 with no prior notice in the changelog.

## 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

### Runway API

1. Send `X-Runway-Version: 2024-11-06` on every request or it fails
2. Use the SDK's wait-for-output helper or poll GET /v1/tasks/{id} until SUCCEEDED or FAILED
3. Don't retry a SAFETY.* failure unchanged. It's moderation, not an outage
4. Take model IDs from the models page, not memory. Two were removed without notice on 2026-07-30
5. Copy outputs to your own storage. URLs expire within 24 to 48 hours

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