# Baseten vs Vast.ai

> Baseten scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Vast.ai's 62.6 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do compute gpu. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-vast-ai
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-vast-ai.md (~2,150 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-vast-ai.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-vast-ai.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: 2026-10-08

Baseten scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Vast.ai's 62.6 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do compute gpu.

- Baseten: grade B, 66.5/100, rank #233 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/baseten.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/baseten.json
- Vast.ai: grade B, 62.6/100, rank #331 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vast-ai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vast-ai.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 78
- Security & auth, 82 against 72
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 81

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

### Vast.ai (B)

Good for: Cost-sensitive training, batch work and self-managed inference where the agent can search listings, set a price cap and tolerate host variance or interruption.

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

Watch for: No SLA. The terms say availability is not guaranteed and the service can change without notice


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Baseten | Vast.ai | 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 | 78 | Baseten +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 57 | Vast.ai +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 82 | 72 | Baseten +10 |
| 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 | 81 | Baseten +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 62 | Baseten +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.5 · B** | **62.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Baseten | Vast.ai |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Baseten | Vast.ai Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.baseten.co` | `https://console.vast.ai/api/v0` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under Vast.ai's Terms of Use Agreement. The `vastai` CLI and Python SDK on GitHub are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-09-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2025-06-18 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| 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 | 223 stars, 33k PyPI/wk |
| 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.

**Vast.ai.** API keys can be limited by permission category and by resource ID, the REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 file, and the CLI ships weekly with a skill file for coding agents. Machines belong to independent hosts, prices move with the market, rate-limit thresholds are unpublished, and there is no SLA or free tier.

## 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

### Vast.ai

1. Create a scoped key with `vastai create api-key --permissions` for the agent. A default key has full account access, billing and key management included
2. Pass `--raw` on every CLI command for JSON output, and `-y` on `vastai destroy instance`, which otherwise waits for a confirmation prompt
3. Register an SSH key with `vastai create ssh-key` before creating an instance, or the host is unreachable
4. Destroy instances when finished. A stopped instance still bills storage, and a zero balance without a saved card leads to deletion
5. Back off on HTTP 429 yourself when calling REST directly. The CLI retries 429 three times from 0.15 seconds
6. Filter searches with `verified=true` or the Secure Cloud option for sensitive data, and set a `dph_total` price cap

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Baseten or Vast.ai?

Baseten scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Vast.ai's 62.6 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Baseten and Vast.ai need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Baseten and Vast.ai without installing anything?

Yes. Baseten has a hosted endpoint at https://api.baseten.co and Vast.ai at https://console.vast.ai/api/v0.

### Are Baseten and Vast.ai open source?

Baseten is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Vast.ai.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Baseten or Vast.ai

- [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 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 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)
- [Beam vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Cerebrium vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cerebrium-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [CoreWeave vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coreweave-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Koyeb vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koyeb-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Lambda Cloud vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lambda-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Modal vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Northflank vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/northflank-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Replicate Deployments vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/replicate-deploy-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Runpod vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/runpod-vs-vast-ai.md)