# Antseed vs xAI API (Grok) (slim)

> xAI scores 71.7 (BB) to Antseed's 54.1 (C) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-xai-api.md (~5,950 tokens) · this version ~2,530 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-xai-api.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-xai-api
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

xAI API (Grok) scores 71.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Antseed's 54.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Antseed leads on payments & pricing. Both do llm inference.

- Antseed: C 54.1, rank #921 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/antseed.min.md
- xAI API (Grok): BB 71.7, rank #152 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/xai-api.min.md
- Antseed, 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 20. Also No key needed to call it; Free to start without a card; Open source.
- xAI API (Grok), good for Agents that want a capable model at a low per-token price with built-in web and X search, remote MCP and voice, and teams that need self-serve ZDR or US-only processing. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 88 against 55; Agent ergonomics, 90 against 56; Security & auth, 97 against 45. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; No incidents deducted, where Antseed loses 3 points for them.

| Category | Antseed | xAI API (Grok) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 52 | 55 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 55 | 88 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 56 | 90 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 45 | 97 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 70 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 79 | 77 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 59 | 63 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Antseed | xAI API (Grok) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model router | Model API |
| Vendor | Antseed Foundation | SpaceXSI (xAI) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.x.ai/v1` |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Licence | GPL-3.0 (LICENSE in the repository). The @antseed/cli manifest on npm carries no licence field | Proprietary service under xAI's enterprise terms of service. The Python SDK is Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-10-31 | 2026-11-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-05-15 | 2026-10-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-10-27 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 106 stars, 1.8k npm/wk | 597 stars, 912k PyPI/wk |

Why the edge:
- Security & auth, xAI API (Grok) +52: Antseed 45 (Model reading. The local proxy has no key and binds to 127.0.0.1. One secp256k1 key is identity and wallet, stored in plain text by the CLI unless supplied by environment variable, and encrypted by the OS keychain in the desktop app. Spending is bounded by a deposit contract, a capped ReserveAuth per seller and an optional separate withdrawal wallet, and gateway keys are hashed, revocable and spend-limited (18 of 30). Sellers are independent, and the FAQ says a standard seller can read prompts and sets its own practices (5 of 20). No central log, and an optional TEE-verified route with attestation checked on the buyer's machine (8 of 15). Seller, token and cost headers per response, `antseed buyer metering` and a Prometheus exporter (12 of 15). The buyer proxy stopped forwarding client credentials to sellers in v0.2.58 (12 October 2026). No SECURITY.md in the 4 November clone; no security.txt, published advisory, bug bounty, certification or contract audit report found. The repository holds one automated review of the buyer proxy dated 8 March 2026 (2 of 20). Docs per the 8 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because the terms of 9 October 2026 bar scripts that scrape or mine data from the Offerings, which include the documentation.); xAI API (Grok) 97 (Model reading. Team API keys with ACLs per endpoint and per model, QPM and TPM caps, expiry, and create, rotate, disable and delete through the Management API, plus documented mTLS. GitHub secret scanning disables leaked keys and emails the owner (30). The security FAQ says SpaceXSI never trains on API inputs or outputs without explicit permission (20). Requests and responses are kept 30 days for abuse auditing, then deleted, and team admins can switch on zero data retention themselves, confirmed by an `x-zero-data-retention` header on every response (15). Console audit log and a Management API audit-events endpoint, plus optional per-key request logging (15). security.txt valid to 2027-06-29 with a HackerOne bug bounty and a separate safety contact for prompt-injection issues. SOC 2 Type 2 is claimed in the security FAQ with the reports behind an NDA in the trust centre, so 17 of 20. Remote MCP doesn't support `require_approval`, which the model checklist doesn't score but reviewers should see. New in October, a `guidelines` array lets the caller make the model decline nsfw, violence or profanity content, which the checklist doesn't score.)
- Payments & pricing, Antseed +50: Antseed 70 (x402 v2 exists only on `POST /v1/key/topup` of a gateway the owner runs, and is off until enabled per key. Inference is paid through Antseed's own HTTP 402 flow with EIP-712 signatures and USDC channels on Base, which isn't one of the three protocols the rubric names (10 of 40, a judgement call). PRICING.md in the repository says seller prices per 1M tokens are published without authentication at a cached endpoint and live through `antseed network browse --json` (20); the 8 October snapshot figures came from that JSON endpoint and are struck. Free models answer with no card and no account, per the docs on 8 October (20). An agent can install the CLI, get a key generated locally and fund it by a USDC transfer, with no sign-up flow (20). The self-hosted rule gives the same three lines for the free software.); xAI API (Grok) 20 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-token and per-call prices published without a login on docs.x.ai/developers/pricing (20). No free tier found for the text API, and the quickstart says to load the account with credits (0). Sign-up is in the browser at console.x.ai. The Management API can create keys and top up prepaid credit, but only with a management key made by a person in the console, so no line credit (0).)
- Agent ergonomics, xAI API (Grok) +34: Antseed 56 (Model reading, as for other routers. Tool use and structured output depend on the seller, and the model list reports both per seller with conservative model-level values (12 of 20 and 8 of 15). Cached-input pricing is advertised per seller where supported (8 of 15). Context length is reported per model as the lowest value across sellers (10 of 15). No batch route found (0 of 10). No SDK of its own for buyers. OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs work against the proxy, and wrappers launch Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode (5 of 10). Documented error codes with fixes, and cost and seller headers on non-streaming responses (13 of 15). Docs per the 8 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because the terms of 9 October 2026 bar scripts that scrape or mine data from the Offerings, which include the documentation.); xAI API (Grok) 90 (Model reading of the checklist (tool use, structured output, caching, context, batch, SDKs, errors). Function calling with parallel calls on by default and `tool_choice` of auto, required, none or a named function (20). Guaranteed structured outputs (15). Automatic prompt caching, cached input at 0.25x on grok-4.7 ($0.50 per million) and 0.16x on grok-4.3 (15). 500,000-token context on grok-4.7 and 1,000,000 on grok-4.3, 13 of 15 for the default model's 500K. The Batch API is now 20% off on grok-4.7, 4.6 and 4.5 as well as the older models, with batch requests outside the rate limits (10 of 10, up from 5 on 6 October). One first-party SDK, `xai-sdk` for Python, with the OpenAI SDKs and Vercel's AI SDK documented as alternatives (5 of 10). Status codes documented with fixes, no Retry-After header found (12 of 15).)
- Schema & documentation, xAI API (Grok) +33: Antseed 55 (No OpenAPI document found in the repository or docs. The proxy copies the OpenAI and Anthropic wire formats (0 of 25). llms.txt at antseed.com/llms.txt and a setup skill at /skill.md (10). The API guide states what each route is for, how routing picks a seller and when to pin one (14 of 20). Request bodies follow the upstream formats, and `/v1/models` reports context length, modalities, tool use and supported parameters per seller (8 of 15). Curl examples for each format and an error table with status, code, meaning and fix (13 of 15). A public changelog and tagged releases, with recent entries under an undated Unreleased heading (10 of 15). Docs per the 8 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because the terms of 9 October 2026 bar scripts that scrape or mine data from the Offerings, which include the documentation.); xAI API (Grok) 88 (OpenAPI 3.1 document at docs.x.ai/openapi.json, 39 paths and 205 schemas on 6 November, covering Responses, Chat Completions, files, images, videos and models. The batch endpoints documented in the REST reference still aren't in it (20 of 25, applied as for gemini-api's missing Interactions API). llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every page, plus a docs MCP server (10). The models page says which model to use for code, chat, images, video and voice, and reference pages list each parameter. Reference not read in full (18 of 20). Structured outputs are guaranteed to match the schema for supported keywords, and tool arguments always conform with `strict` implicitly true (15). Examples in Python, JavaScript and curl on every guide. The debugging page lists status codes with fixes, but the cause cells for 400, 403, 404 and 415 are still empty (13 of 15). Release notes are grouped by month without day dates, and model slugs come as aliases and dated versions (12 of 15).)