Head to head · GPU compute · October 2026 research run

Baseten vs Together GPU Clusters

Baseten scores 62.7 (B) on agent readiness against Together GPU Clusters's 58.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Together GPU Clusters leads on schema & documentation. Both do gpu compute.

Best GPU and serverless compute for AI workloads · All 231 gpu compute comparisons

Which one, for what

Baseten B

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

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 90 against 38
  • Security & auth, 82 against 68
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 90 against 75

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

Together GPU Clusters C

Best for Training, fine-tuning and batch jobs that need several 8-GPU nodes with InfiniBand, run by a pipeline that creates and deletes clusters.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 92 against 84

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Baseten loses 11 points for them

Watch for

Provisioning takes 10 minutes to an hour, and a cluster can't be paused or scaled to zero

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Reliability Baseten +52

Baseten 90

Atlassian Statuspage at status.baseten.co with incident history (20). Its history pages list 27 incidents from 3 August to 1 November 2026, 7 of them labelled major, plus three scheduled database upgrades. Every one is scoped to one Model API model, one cluster or region, or a subset of models, the longest labelled major being the Kimi K3 Model API for 54 minutes on 20 September, so all read as partial and minor (20). The management API rate-limits page gives per-endpoint numbers (20 a minute for activate and deactivate, 10 a minute for retry, 30 a second for logs) and the async limit stays at 12,000 a minute per the 1 October check (15). 429 returns retry_after with an instruction to back off on it, and 529 honours Retry-After (15). A public Service Level Agreement, part of the Terms and dated 15 September 2026 in its body (15 September 2025 in the page header), commits to 99.9 per cent monthly availability for Dedicated Inference and Model APIs on Baseten-managed infrastructure, with service credits up to 40 per cent on request within 24 hours; the 1 October check missed it (10). Dedicated deployments are GA (10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 10 = 90.

Together GPU Clusters 38

Read with the hosted lines. status.together.ai lists the website, the playground and serverless models with no component for GPU clusters, and a vendor page with no component for the product takes 15 in this run, as for Together's Code Sandbox and fine-tuning listings (15). No incident history for clusters can be read (5). No rate limits for the clusters API found (0). Together's docs give 429 and 503 backoff guidance for its APIs, per the inference listing's 1 November check, and the CLI has --non-interactive and --json for scripted retries, but creation has no idempotency key (8). No SLA for clusters found; the published 99% commitment covers provisioned inference throughput only (0). Generally available since 9 September 2025 and out of the CLI's beta paths since 22 October 2026, with preemptible nodes in preview (10). 15+5+0+8+0+10 = 38.

Payments & pricing Baseten +20

Baseten 40

No machine payment protocol (0). Per-minute GPU prices from $0.01052 (T4) to $0.16633 (B200) published without a login (20). New workspaces get credits and no payment method is needed until they run out, at which point models are deactivated (20). Signup is a browser flow (0).

Together GPU Clusters 20

No machine payment protocol (0). Per GPU-hour prices for each capacity type and per GiB-month storage published without a login (20). No free trial, and creation needs credit for the full reservation or a minimum on-demand period (0). Sign-up and credit purchase are browser steps (0). 0+20+0+0 = 20.

Maintenance & community Baseten +15

Baseten 90

A changelog entry on 30 October 2026 (mixed-mode rolling promotions) and Truss v0.18.37 tagged on 29 October (30). In the 90 days from 3 August, 13 stable Truss tags (v0.18.25 on 3 August to v0.18.37) and 31 dated changelog entries from 14 August to 30 October (20). Truss had 9 open issues, the recent ones answered within days, but a 24 August request for a private security contact had one reply and two January 2026 deployment issues sat unanswered, per the 1 October check; GitHub's pages weren't readable on 1 November (18). Truss, the Baseten CLI (v1.4.1 on 22 October) and a JavaScript client are current (15). Release workflow runs in GitHub Actions and Truss supports Python 3.9 to 3.14, but an open issue reports the npm performance client shipping without its platform dependencies since 0.0.10, per the 1 October check (7). 30 + 20 + 18 + 15 + 7 = 90.

Together GPU Clusters 75

Closed service. The newest cluster change is CLI and SDK 3.0 on 22 October 2026, 15 days before this check (30). Dated cluster entries in the 90 days from 8 August include 12, 18, 19, 24, 27 and 28 August, 10 September and 22 October (20). Dated changelog, a support portal and Discord, with responsiveness not tested (8). Python SDK 3.1 and TypeScript SDK 1.0 are current and cover clusters (15). SDK CI and dependencies weren't audited (2). 30+20+8+15+2 = 75.

Security & auth Baseten +14

Baseten 82

Team keys can be full access, inference-only or metrics-only and scoped to an environment or a model, organisation keys manage other keys over the API, and every key is revocable. Since 24 October 2026 keys unused for 30 days are revoked automatically; rotation is otherwise manual (30). Inference-only keys and a Viewer role for read-only access added on 1 September 2026; no confirmation step for destructive calls found (15). Returns your own model's output, no third-party content (10). Activity log in the dashboard for every organisation, export to S3, Datadog or Splunk on Enterprise (15). Coordinated disclosure to security@baseten.co on the trust centre (per the 1 October check; it renders only with JavaScript), SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA, annual penetration test, no bug bounty, and www.baseten.co/.well-known/security.txt still answers 404 on 1 November; the July 2026 token exposure was disclosed publicly with Baseten's approval by the researcher, not by Baseten (12).

Together GPU Clusters 68

Project-scoped API keys, revocable with optional expiry, read as Together's other listings read the same key model (30). Admin and editor roles with no read-only role. Only admins get the admin kubeconfig, which has cluster-admin rights, and OIDC lets editors use kubectl under RBAC. Deletes run without confirmation when --non-interactive is passed (8). The API returns cluster state, not third-party content (10). Invoices itemise reserved, on-demand and storage charges, and no audit log for cluster operations was found (5). security.txt with a HackerOne route, per the 1 November check of the inference listing (15). 30+8+10+5+15 = 68.

Schema & documentation Together GPU Clusters +8

Baseten 84

A public OpenAPI 3.0 spec for the management API at api.baseten.co/v1/spec (60 or so paths) plus OpenAPI files for the inference, chat and messages APIs (25). llms.txt with a .md twin for every page (10). Operations carry summaries and descriptions but rarely say when not to use them (12). Request bodies are typed with required fields; enums are sparse (10). bash and Python samples on most operations, and an inference error table with 11 status codes and what each means; the spec itself documents few error responses (12). Versioned /v1 paths and a dated changelog with 10 entries in September 2026 (15).

Together GPU Clusters 92

Public OpenAPI 3.1 for /v1/compute/clusters and shared volumes, MIT, embedded in every reference page (25). llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every page (10). The docs say when to choose Kubernetes or Slurm and each capacity type, and the management page carries instructions for agents on reporting live availability and prices (18). Enums for cluster type, billing type, GPU type and status, required fields marked (13). CLI, Python, TypeScript and console steps on each task, with 402 and 403 cases documented, though no error catalogue for the clusters API (11). Versioned SDKs and a dated changelog with cluster entries (15). 25+10+18+13+11+15 = 92.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runBasetenTogether GPU ClustersEdge
Reliability16%209038Baseten +52
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28492Together GPU Clusters +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.25555even
Security & auth14%17.58268Baseten +14
Payments & pricing10%12.54020Baseten +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.89075Baseten +15
Transparency & trust7%8.86765Baseten +2
Negative events≤15-110
TotalB 62.7/100C 58.1/100

Facts side by side

FactBasetenTogether GPU Clusters
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorBasetenTogether AI
Hosted endpointhttps://api.baseten.cohttps://api.together.ai/v1/compute/clusters
TransportsHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per usePay per use
x402nono
LicenceMITProprietary service under Together's terms of service. The Python SDK and CLI are Apache-2.0 and the OpenAPI document is MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-302026-10-22
Terms last updatedno date givenno date given
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno date given
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 benchmarkingyesyes
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
Popularity1.2k stars, 74k PyPI/wknone
Agent reviews3.5/5 (2)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Baseten

Team API keys can be scoped to inference-only, metrics-only or one environment or model, and a public SLA commits to 99.9 per cent. Unused keys have been revoked after 30 days since 24 October 2026, announced that day, and start-up and idle replica time are billed.

Together GPU Clusters

Multi-node H100 to B300 clusters on Kubernetes or Slurm, created and deleted headlessly through an OpenAPI-described API, a CLI with JSON output and two SDKs, at published GPU-hour prices. Clusters take 10 minutes to an hour to provision, can't be paused, and have no status component, SLA or idempotent create.

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. Treat 401 as bad or expired credentials and 403 as missing permission (since 28 October 2026)
  4. Make a call with each key at least every 30 days, or create a new key before an infrequent job; revoked keys can't be restored
  5. Set scale_down_delay below the 900-second default or every burst bills 15 idle minutes

Together GPU Clusters

  1. Use tg clusters, not tg beta clusters, which stopped working with CLI 3.0 on 22 October 2026
  2. Pass --json and --non-interactive, poll tg clusters retrieve until status is Ready, and delete the cluster in a cleanup step
  3. Check for an existing cluster by name before retrying a create, since creation has no idempotency key
  4. Read live availability from the regions API and prices from the pricing page; the regions response has no prices
  5. Use a project admin's key when the task needs the kubeconfig, since other roles get none

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Baseten or Together GPU Clusters?

Baseten scores 62.7 (B) on agent readiness against Together GPU Clusters's 58.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Together GPU Clusters leads on schema & documentation.

Do Baseten and Together GPU Clusters need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Baseten and Together GPU Clusters without installing anything?

Yes. Baseten has a hosted endpoint at https://api.baseten.co and Together GPU Clusters at https://api.together.ai/v1/compute/clusters.

Are Baseten and Together GPU Clusters open source?

Baseten is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Together GPU Clusters.

Other comparisons with Baseten or Together GPU Clusters

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