# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-sambanova
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-sambanova.md (~2,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-sambanova.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-sambanova.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: 2026-10-09

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.

- Antseed: grade C, 55.1/100, rank #599 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/antseed.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/antseed.json
- SambaCloud: grade B, 66.4/100, rank #269 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sambanova.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sambanova.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

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

| Category | Weight | Antseed | SambaCloud | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 62 | 85 | SambaCloud +23 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 81 | SambaCloud +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 67 | SambaCloud +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 45 | 58 | SambaCloud +13 |
| 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 | 77 | Antseed +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 63 | SambaCloud +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **55.1 · C** | **66.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Antseed | SambaCloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model router | Model API |
| Vendor | Antseed Foundation | SambaNova Systems, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.sambanova.ai/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 | Proprietary service under the SambaCloud Terms of Service. The SDKs and the OpenAPI document are Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-09-17 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-05-15 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2023-05-27 |
| 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 | 2 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.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Antseed or SambaCloud

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