# Baseten vs Thunder Compute

> Baseten scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do compute gpu. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-thunder-compute
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-thunder-compute.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-thunder-compute.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-thunder-compute.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

Baseten scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do compute gpu.

- Baseten: grade B, 66.5/100, rank #264 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/baseten.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/baseten.json
- Thunder Compute: grade C, 56.1/100, rank #576 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/thunder-compute.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/thunder-compute.json

## Which one, for what

### Baseten (B)

Good for: Teams that want one model behind a production endpoint with real autoscaling knobs, environments and scoped keys.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 65
- Schema & documentation, 84 against 70
- Agent ergonomics, 55 against 48
- Security & auth, 82 against 51
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 79

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: H100 at $6.50 and A100 at $4.00 an hour, and start-up and idle replica time are billed

### Thunder Compute (C)

Good for: Agents in coding tools that rent a single persistent GPU machine for development, fine-tuning or a model server, at low hourly prices and over MCP.

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Baseten loses 5 points for them

Watch for: No rate limits, 429 guidance or SLA were found in the reviewed documentation, and the terms disclaim availability


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Baseten | Thunder Compute | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 65 | Baseten +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 70 | Baseten +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 48 | Baseten +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 82 | 51 | Baseten +31 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 20 | Baseten +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 90 | 79 | Baseten +11 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 64 | Baseten +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.5 · B** | **56.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Baseten | Thunder Compute |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Baseten | Thunder Compute |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.baseten.co` | `https://api.thundercompute.com:8443/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| Price for compute gpu | not published | $0.219 per GB per month |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under Thunder Compute's Terms and Conditions. The `tnr` CLI on GitHub is MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.Thunder-Compute/thunder-compute` |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-16 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-09-28 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-09-28 |
| 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 | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 1.2k stars, 74k PyPI/wk | 34 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Baseten.** Team API keys scoped to inference-only, metrics-only or a single environment or model, plus a Viewer role since 1 September 2026. H100 at $6.50 and A100 at $4.00 an hour, and start-up and idle replica time are billed.

**Thunder Compute.** The hosted MCP server signs in with OAuth and separate read and write scopes, and the REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document with keyless price and availability endpoints. No rate limits, SLA or API changelog were found, instance creation has no idempotency key, and instances cannot be stopped, only deleted.

## Before you call either

### Baseten

1. Create a team key with inference-only permission for calling models and keep full-access keys out of the agent
2. Sleep for `retry_after` seconds on a 429 from api.baseten.co; the activate and deactivate endpoints allow 20 calls a minute
3. Retry 429, 503 and 529 with backoff, but treat 500 as a bug in your model code
4. Set `scale_down_delay` below the 900-second default or every burst bills 15 idle minutes
5. Send payloads over 256 KiB to `/predict`, not `/async_predict`, unless support has raised the async limit

### Thunder Compute

1. Call `GET /v2/status` or the `get_availability` tool before creating an instance. Availability can change before launch, and creation fails when a type is sold out.
2. List instances before retrying a failed create, because the call has no idempotency key.
3. Pass `public_key` on create. If omitted, the response carries a generated private key that is returned once.
4. To pause work, create a snapshot, delete the instance and later create a new instance from the snapshot. Snapshot storage keeps billing until deleted.
5. For headless use set `TNR_API_TOKEN` to a token from the console. The MCP server needs a browser sign-in on first connection.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Baseten or Thunder Compute?

Baseten scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C), and leads in every scored category.

### Do Baseten and Thunder Compute need an API key?

Baseten needs an API key. Thunder Compute takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Baseten and Thunder Compute without installing anything?

Yes. Baseten has a hosted endpoint at https://api.baseten.co and Thunder Compute at https://api.thundercompute.com:8443/v1.

### Are Baseten and Thunder Compute open source?

Baseten is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Thunder Compute.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Baseten or Thunder Compute

- [Baseten vs Beam](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-beam.md)
- [Baseten vs Cerebrium](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-cerebrium.md)
- [Baseten vs CoreWeave](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-coreweave.md)
- [Baseten vs Hugging Face Inference Endpoints](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-hugging-face-inference-endpoints.md)
- [Baseten vs Hyperbolic](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-hyperbolic.md)
- [Baseten vs Koyeb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-koyeb.md)
- [Baseten vs Lambda Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-lambda.md)
- [Baseten vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-modal.md)
- [Baseten vs Nebius AI Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-nebius-ai-cloud.md)
- [Baseten vs Northflank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-northflank.md)
- [Baseten vs Replicate Deployments](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-replicate-deploy.md)
- [Baseten vs Runpod](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-runpod.md)
- [Baseten vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Baseten vs Verda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-verda.md)
- [Beam vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Cerebrium vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cerebrium-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [CoreWeave vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coreweave-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Hugging Face Inference Endpoints vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hugging-face-inference-endpoints-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Koyeb vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koyeb-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Lambda Cloud vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lambda-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Modal vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Nebius AI Cloud vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nebius-ai-cloud-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Northflank vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/northflank-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Replicate Deployments vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/replicate-deploy-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Runpod vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/runpod-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Thunder Compute vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/thunder-compute-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Thunder Compute vs Verda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/thunder-compute-vs-verda.md)