# Beam vs Hyperbolic

> Beam scores 55.5 (C) on agent readiness against Hyperbolic's 48 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Hyperbolic leads on schema & documentation. Both do compute gpu. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-hyperbolic
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-hyperbolic.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-hyperbolic.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-hyperbolic.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

Beam scores 55.5 (C) on agent readiness against Hyperbolic's 48 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Hyperbolic leads on schema & documentation. Both do compute gpu.

- Beam: grade C, 55.5/100, rank #588 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/beam.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/beam.json
- Hyperbolic: grade D, 48/100, rank #730 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hyperbolic.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hyperbolic.json

## Which one, for what

### Beam (C)

Good for: Cost-sensitive Python teams running bursty GPU functions on consumer or PCIe cards, and anyone who wants the option to self-host the same runtime.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 15
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 42
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 61

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: No published request rate limits, 429 handling or SLA

### Hyperbolic (D)

Good for: Agents that rent whole H100, H200 or B200 machines or multi-node clusters for training and batch work and that have a funded account.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 77 against 58

Watch for: API keys carry no scopes or expiry in the reviewed documentation, and the same key can call `DELETE /v2/users/me`


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Beam | Hyperbolic | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 52 | Beam +3 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 77 | Hyperbolic +19 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 55 | Beam +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 50 | 47 | Beam +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 15 | Beam +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 42 | Beam +43 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 61 | Beam +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **55.5 · C** | **48 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Beam | Hyperbolic |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Beam | Hyperbolic Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://app.beam.cloud/api/v1` | `https://api.hyperbolic.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary service under Hyperbolic's Terms of Service. The unmaintained hyperbolic-mcp repository on GitHub is MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-14 | 2025-03-24 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-14 | no date given |
| 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 | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 1.8k stars, 8.5k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Beam.** Per-millisecond billing with cold starts and image pulls free, H100 PCIe at $3.50 and RTX 4090 at $0.69 an hour. No published request rate limits, 429 handling or SLA.

**Hyperbolic.** The API serves its own OpenAPI 3.1 document without a key, lists GPU prices on an open endpoint and dates the removal of legacy paths at 1 March 2027. API keys carry no scopes and can delete the account, rental creation has no idempotency key, and renting needs a browser signup and a $5 deposit.

## Before you call either

### Beam

1. Check the response body for `ok: false` on gateway calls; a failure can arrive as HTTP 200
2. Don't pipe `beam deploy --format json` output into CI logs, since it contains the workspace token
3. Route anything over 180 seconds to a task queue and poll the task instead of holding the endpoint request
4. Set `keep_warm_seconds` deliberately; the 180-second endpoint default bills three minutes of GPU after every call
5. Pass `gpu=["RTX4090", "A10G"]` so a job still schedules when one type is out

### Hyperbolic

1. Read `GET /v2/on-demand/rental-options` first. It needs no key and lists what can be rented now, with `costPerHourCents` per GPU configuration.
2. Send `rentalType` and `gpuCount` to `POST /v2/on-demand/rentals`. Region defaults to `us-central-1` and GPU type to `h100`, so set both from the options list.
3. List active rentals before retrying a failed create call. There is no idempotency key and every ready rental bills hourly.
4. Save an SSH public key with `POST /v2/ssh-keys` before renting. Without `sshPublicKeyIds` the newest saved key is attached.
5. Do not create reserved rentals unless asked. They are paid in full up front and cannot be terminated early.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Beam or Hyperbolic?

Beam scores 55.5 (C) on agent readiness against Hyperbolic's 48 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Hyperbolic leads on schema & documentation.

### Can an agent call Beam and Hyperbolic without installing anything?

Yes. Beam has a hosted endpoint at https://app.beam.cloud/api/v1 and Hyperbolic at https://api.hyperbolic.ai.

### Are Beam and Hyperbolic open source?

Beam is open source (AGPL-3.0). No open-source release is listed for Hyperbolic.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Beam or Hyperbolic

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