# BlockRun.AI vs SambaCloud

> BlockRun.AI scores 72.4 (BB) on agent readiness against SambaCloud's 66.4 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. SambaCloud leads on reliability and schema & documentation. Both do llm inference. BlockRun.AI accepts x402. SambaCloud doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-sambanova
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-sambanova.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-sambanova.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-sambanova.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

BlockRun.AI scores 72.4 (BB) on agent readiness against SambaCloud's 66.4 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. SambaCloud leads on reliability and schema & documentation. Both do llm inference. BlockRun.AI accepts x402. SambaCloud doesn't.

- BlockRun.AI: grade BB, 72.4/100, rank #101 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/blockrun-ai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/blockrun-ai.json
- SambaCloud: grade B, 66.4/100, rank #269 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sambanova.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sambanova.json

## Which one, for what

### BlockRun.AI (BB)

Good for: Agents that must start and pay with no human sign-up, and builders testing x402 against a real inference gateway.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 70 against 58
- Payments & pricing, 100 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 77

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: The status page shows live checks only and keeps no incident history

### SambaCloud (B)

Good for: Agents that want open-weight models behind an OpenAI or Anthropic client with a free start and prices an agent can read from the API.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 85 against 55
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 75

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: Production models get a notice of two to three weeks, and 13 model ids were removed between 9 March and 9 June 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | BlockRun.AI | SambaCloud | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 85 | SambaCloud +30 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 81 | SambaCloud +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 67 | BlockRun.AI +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 70 | 58 | BlockRun.AI +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 100 | 40 | BlockRun.AI +60 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 77 | BlockRun.AI +8 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 63 | BlockRun.AI +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **72.4 · BB** | **66.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | BlockRun.AI | SambaCloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | Model API |
| Vendor | BlockRun, Inc. | SambaNova Systems, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.sambanova.ai/v1` |
| Transports | stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | yes | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under the SambaCloud Terms of Service. The SDKs and the OpenAPI document are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 19 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-17 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-02 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-02 | 2023-05-27 |
| 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 | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 5 stars, 679 PyPI/wk | 2 stars, 76 npm/wk, 6.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**BlockRun.AI.** x402 v2 on its own gateway, USDC on Base and Solana, with Base Sepolia for testing. The status page shows live checks only and keeps no incident history.

**SambaCloud.** Per-token prices and the model list are readable without a key at `/v1/models`, and a free tier needs no card. Production models get two to three weeks' notice before removal, 13 model ids left between March and June 2026, and the docs disagree with the live catalogue on MiniMax-M2.7.

## Before you call either

### BlockRun.AI

1. Fund a dedicated wallet with a small USDC balance. The balance is the spending cap
2. Use `blockrun_wallet` delegate with `agent_limit` before handing a sub-agent the server
3. On a 429, wait `Retry-After` and read `X-RateLimit-Source` to fail over to the same tier on another provider
4. Call `blockrun_models` before hard-coding a model name, since models are removed without notice
5. Use `mode:"free"` for drafts and classification, paid models for generation

### SambaCloud

1. Call `GET https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/models` at start-up and use only ids it returns. The docs name models the endpoint no longer lists
2. Read `x-ratelimit-remaining-requests` and `x-ratelimit-remaining-requests-day` on every response. The free tier allows 20 requests a day per model
3. Treat 429 `queue_full` and 503 `maintenance` as retryable after a delay, and 410 `model_deprecated` as a signal to change model
4. Validate JSON output yourself. Schema enforcement is best effort and `strict: true` changes nothing
5. Check `max_completion_tokens` per model. DeepSeek-V3.1 caps output at 7,168 tokens and Llama 3.3 70B at 3,072

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, BlockRun.AI or SambaCloud?

BlockRun.AI scores 72.4 (BB) on agent readiness against SambaCloud's 66.4 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. SambaCloud leads on reliability and schema & documentation.

### Do BlockRun.AI and SambaCloud need an API key?

BlockRun.AI takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. SambaCloud needs an API key. An agent can also pay BlockRun.AI per call over x402, with no account.

### Can an agent call BlockRun.AI and SambaCloud without installing anything?

BlockRun.AI runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. SambaCloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.sambanova.ai/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with BlockRun.AI or SambaCloud

- [Claude API vs BlockRun.AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-blockrun-ai.md)
- [Claude API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Antseed vs BlockRun.AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-blockrun-ai.md)
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- [Gemini Developer API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [GroqCloud vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-sambanova.md)
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