# Beam vs Verda

> Verda scores 62.3 (B) on agent readiness against Beam's 55.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Beam leads on payments & pricing. Both do compute gpu. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-verda
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-verda.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-verda.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-verda.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

Verda scores 62.3 (B) on agent readiness against Beam's 55.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Beam leads on payments & pricing. 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
- Verda: grade B, 62.3/100, rank #396 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/verda.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/verda.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 20

Also in its favour:
- Open source

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

### Verda (B)

Good for: Agents that rent whole GPU machines or clusters in Finland for training or batch work, or deploy scale-to-zero container endpoints, and that can run a local CLI for MCP.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 67 against 55
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 58
- Agent ergonomics, 63 against 58
- Security & auth, 68 against 50

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No free tier. Accounts are prepaid, and instances are discontinued and volumes deleted when the balance reaches zero


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Beam | Verda | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 67 | Verda +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 82 | Verda +24 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 63 | Verda +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 50 | 68 | Verda +18 |
| 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 | 83 | Beam +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 76 | Verda +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **55.5 · C** | **62.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Beam | Verda |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Beam | Verda |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://app.beam.cloud/api/v1` | `https://api.verda.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary service under Verda's Terms of Service. The CLI, the Python SDK and the Go SDK on GitHub are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 18 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-14 | 2025-09-30 |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 1.8k stars, 8.5k PyPI/wk | 10k PyPI/wk |
| 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.

**Verda.** The REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document, a dated changelog, published rate limits with `Retry-After`, and an audit log endpoint. The CLI's MCP server refuses billed or destructive calls without `confirm: true`. Access needs a browser signup and a prepaid balance, credentials carry one scope, and instance creation has no idempotency key.

## 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

### Verda

1. Exchange the client ID and secret at `POST /v1/oauth2/token`, then send the access token as a Bearer header. It expires after 3,600 seconds, so refresh it.
2. Send `location_code` on every create call. Requests without it have returned 400 since March 2026.
3. Call `GET /v1/instance-availability` before launching. `POST /v1/instances` returns 503 `service_unavailable` when the location has no capacity.
4. List instances before retrying a failed launch, because create has no idempotency key.
5. Use the `delete` action to stop charges. `shutdown` keeps billing, and deleted volumes stay recoverable for 96 hours unless `delete_permanently` is set.

## Questions

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

Verda scores 62.3 (B) on agent readiness against Beam's 55.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Beam leads on payments & pricing.

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

Yes. Beam has a hosted endpoint at https://app.beam.cloud/api/v1 and Verda at https://api.verda.com/v1.

### Are Beam and Verda open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Beam or Verda

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