# Antseed vs GroqCloud

> GroqCloud scores 75.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Antseed's 55.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Antseed leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do llm inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-groq
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-groq.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-groq.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-groq.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

GroqCloud scores 75.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Antseed's 55.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Antseed leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do llm inference.

- Antseed: grade C, 55.1/100, rank #518 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/antseed.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/antseed.json
- GroqCloud: grade BB, 75.6/100, rank #39 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/groq.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/groq.json

## Which one, for what

### Antseed (C)

Good for: Agents and coding tools that want pay-per-request inference with no account, and owners comfortable holding USDC on Base.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 70 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 72

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: The buyer proxy copies a client's `Authorization` and `x-api-key` headers to the seller. The repository's March 2026 review flagged it and issue #1104 is open

### GroqCloud (BB)

Good for: Many small, latency-sensitive calls on open-weight models, routing, extraction and classification, and agents that need to start free.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 100 against 62
- Schema & documentation, 64 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 56
- Security & auth, 77 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 85 against 59

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where Antseed loses 4 points for them

Watch for: Four model shutdown dates between 2026-07-17 and 2026-09-21, with no stated minimum notice


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Antseed | GroqCloud | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 62 | 100 | GroqCloud +38 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 64 | GroqCloud +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 80 | GroqCloud +24 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 45 | 77 | GroqCloud +32 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 70 | 40 | Antseed +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 72 | Antseed +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 85 | GroqCloud +26 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **55.1 · C** | **75.6 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Antseed | GroqCloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model router | Model API |
| Vendor | Antseed Foundation | Groq |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.groq.com/openai/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | GPL-3.0 (LICENSE in the repository). The @antseed/cli manifest on npm carries no licence field | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-09-21 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-05-15 | 2026-06-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2025-11-12 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 106 stars, 1.8k npm/wk | 619 stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**Antseed.** A buyer needs no account. The CLI creates a wallet key, free models answer at once and paid ones draw on deposited USDC, with seller, tokens and cost returned in response headers. Sellers are unvetted and can read prompts unless TEE-verified, the proxy forwards a client's own credential headers to them, and every package is pre-1.0.

**GroqCloud.** Free plan with no card, at 30 requests a minute and 1,000 a day on gpt-oss. Four model shutdown dates between 2026-07-17 and 2026-09-21, with no stated minimum notice.

## Before you call either

### Antseed

1. Send a placeholder key such as `antseed-p2p`. The proxy forwards whatever `Authorization` or `x-api-key` header the client sends to the seller
2. Call `GET /v1/models` first and request a concrete id. The `antseed` alias works only when the desktop app has a model selected
3. Handle 402 `insufficient_deposits` by reading `suggestedAmount`, then fund the address from `antseed buyer deposit` with USDC on Base
4. Pass `--verifiers antseed-verifier --require-verifier` to `antseed buyer start` when prompts are private, so only TEE-verified sellers are routed
5. Read `x-antseed-peer-id` and `x-antseed-estimated-cost-usd` on each response, and pin a seller with `<peerId>@<model>` when the same one must answer

### GroqCloud

1. Call `/models` at start-up. Four model ids stopped working this quarter
2. Read `retry-after` on a 429 and the `x-ratelimit-remaining-tokens` header before the next call
3. Free plan allows 8,000 tokens a minute on gpt-oss, so keep prompts small or batch them
4. Don't build on Qwen 3.8 27B. It's a preview and previews can go at short notice
5. Treat a 498 as Flex capacity and retry later; 5xx responses aren't billed

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Antseed or GroqCloud?

GroqCloud scores 75.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Antseed's 55.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Antseed leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Do Antseed and GroqCloud need an API key?

Antseed needs no key. GroqCloud needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Antseed and GroqCloud without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Antseed. GroqCloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.groq.com/openai/v1.

### Are Antseed and GroqCloud open source?

Antseed is open source (GPL-3.0 (LICENSE in the repository). The @antseed/cli manifest on npm carries no licence field). No open-source release is listed for GroqCloud.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-groq.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-groq.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "antseed", "b": "groq"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare antseed groq`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/antseed.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/groq.json

## Other comparisons with Antseed or GroqCloud

- [Claude API vs Antseed](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-antseed.md)
- [Claude API vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-groq.md)
- [Antseed vs BlockRun.AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-blockrun-ai.md)
- [Antseed vs DeepSeek API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-deepseek-api.md)
- [Antseed vs Gemini Developer API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-gemini-api.md)
- [Antseed vs Mistral AI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-mistral-api.md)
- [Antseed vs OpenAI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-openai-api.md)
- [Antseed vs Prism Inference](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-prism-inference.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-groq.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-groq.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-groq.md)
- [GroqCloud vs Mistral AI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-mistral-api.md)
- [GroqCloud vs OpenAI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-openai-api.md)
- [GroqCloud vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-openrouter.md)
- [GroqCloud vs Prism Inference](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-prism-inference.md)
- [Antseed vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-openrouter.md)