# Beam vs Massed Compute

> Beam scores 55.5 (C) to Massed Compute's 42.3 (E) for gpu compute. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-massed-compute
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-massed-compute.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-massed-compute.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-massed-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

Beam scores 55.5 (C) on agent readiness against Massed Compute's 42.3 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Massed Compute leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do gpu compute.

- Beam: grade C, 55.5/100, rank #654 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/beam.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/beam.json
- Massed Compute: grade E, 42.3/100, rank #896 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/massed-compute.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/massed-compute.json
- Best GPU and serverless compute for AI workloads: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/gpu-compute/index.md
- All 167 gpu compute comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpu-compute/index.md

## 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:
- Reliability, 55 against 20
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 51
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 61

Also in its favour:
- Open source

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

### Massed Compute (E)

Good for: Agents that rent whole GPU VMs by the hour for training, fine-tuning or a model server and want a small MCP tool set with a read-only mode.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 69 against 58
- Security & auth, 61 against 50

Watch for: No status page, incident history or security.txt was found on any of the vendor's hosts


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Beam | Massed Compute | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 20 | Beam +35 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 69 | Massed Compute +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 56 | Beam +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 50 | 61 | Massed Compute +11 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 20 | Beam +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 51 | Beam +34 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 61 | Beam +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **55.5 · C** | **42.3 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Beam | Massed Compute |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Beam | Massed Compute |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://app.beam.cloud/api/v1` | `https://vm.massedcompute.com/api/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for gpu compute | not published | $5.43 per GPU-hour |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary service under Massed Compute's Terms & Conditions and End User Licence Agreement. The `massed-compute-mcp` wrapper on GitHub is MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 17 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.Massed-Compute/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-07-24 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-14 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-14 | 2026-07-22 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 1.8k stars, 8.5k PyPI/wk | 1 stars |
| 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.

**Massed Compute.** The hosted MCP server and REST API accept OAuth grants or API tokens in read-only and full-access tiers, and all 17 tools carry typed schemas and safety annotations in a public server card. No status page, rate limit figures or API changelog were found, a launch has no idempotency key, and the governing terms could not be read.

## 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

### Massed Compute

1. Use `https://vm.massedcompute.com/api/v1`. The older docs at api-docs.massedcompute.com describe a separate marketplace API on `api.massedcompute.com` whose keys come from support.
2. Ask the owner for a read-only token unless the task must launch or terminate. Read-only credentials cannot call launch, restart, terminate or SSH key changes.
3. Call `gpu_inventory_list` and `images_list` before `instances_launch`. Product names and image IDs are free values, and SXM-only images do not run on PCIe cards.
4. Expect 402 on launch until the owner has added credit and set a recharge amount and threshold. List instances before retrying a launch.
5. Terminate to end billing. Stopping keeps the full hourly charge, and termination deletes the instance data.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Beam or Massed Compute?

Beam scores 55.5 (C) on agent readiness against Massed Compute's 42.3 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Massed Compute leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.

### Can an agent call Beam and Massed Compute without installing anything?

Yes. Beam has a hosted endpoint at https://app.beam.cloud/api/v1 and Massed Compute at https://vm.massedcompute.com/api/v1.

### Are Beam and Massed Compute open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Beam or Massed Compute

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