Head to head · LLM inference · October 2026 research run

Antseed vs SambaCloud

SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against Antseed's 55.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Antseed leads on payments & pricing. Both do llm inference.

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

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

SambaCloud B

Good for Agents that want open-weight models behind an OpenAI or Anthropic client with a free start and prices an agent can read from the API.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 85 against 62
  • Schema & documentation, 81 against 55
  • Agent ergonomics, 67 against 56
  • Security & auth, 58 against 45

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

Production models get a notice of two to three weeks, and 13 model ids were removed between 9 March and 9 June 2026

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAntseedSambaCloudEdge
Reliability16%206285SambaCloud +23
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25581SambaCloud +26
Agent ergonomics13%16.25667SambaCloud +11
Security & auth14%17.54558SambaCloud +13
Payments & pricing10%12.57040Antseed +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87977Antseed +2
Transparency & trust7%8.85963SambaCloud +4
Negative events≤15-4-2
Total55.1 · C66.4 · B

Facts side by side

FactAntseedSambaCloud
KindModel routerModel API
VendorAntseed FoundationSambaNova Systems, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.sambanova.ai/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicenceGPL-3.0 (LICENSE in the repository). The @antseed/cli manifest on npm carries no licence fieldProprietary service under the SambaCloud Terms of Service. The SDKs and the OpenAPI document are Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-082026-09-17
Terms last updated2026-05-15no date given
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2023-05-27
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularity106 stars, 1.8k npm/wk2 stars, 76 npm/wk, 6.1k PyPI/wk

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.

SambaCloud

Per-token prices and the model list are readable without a key at /v1/models, and a free tier needs no card. Production models get two to three weeks' notice before removal, 13 model ids left between March and June 2026, and the docs disagree with the live catalogue on MiniMax-M2.7.

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

SambaCloud

  1. Call GET https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/models at start-up and use only ids it returns. The docs name models the endpoint no longer lists
  2. Read x-ratelimit-remaining-requests and x-ratelimit-remaining-requests-day on every response. The free tier allows 20 requests a day per model
  3. Treat 429 queue_full and 503 maintenance as retryable after a delay, and 410 model_deprecated as a signal to change model
  4. Validate JSON output yourself. Schema enforcement is best effort and strict: true changes nothing
  5. Check max_completion_tokens per model. DeepSeek-V3.1 caps output at 7,168 tokens and Llama 3.3 70B at 3,072

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Antseed or SambaCloud?

SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against Antseed's 55.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Antseed leads on payments & pricing.

Do Antseed and SambaCloud need an API key?

Antseed needs no key. SambaCloud needs an API key.

Can an agent call Antseed and SambaCloud without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Antseed. SambaCloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.sambanova.ai/v1.

Are Antseed and SambaCloud 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 SambaCloud.

Other comparisons with Antseed or SambaCloud

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