Head to head · LLM inference · October 2026 research run
Cloudflare Workers AI vs Tencent Hy4
Cloudflare Workers AI scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Tencent Hy4's 64 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Tencent Hy4 leads on agent ergonomics. Both do llm inference.
Best model APIs and inference for AI agents · All 1044 models comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Agents that already run on Cloudflare Workers, or that want open-weight chat, embedding, reranking, speech and image models behind one token with a free daily allowance.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 68 against 46
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 73
- Security & auth, 80 against 71
- Payments & pricing, 63 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 52
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
Watch for
No SLA for Workers AI was found in the docs or the agreements read
Best for Long-context agent work, coding and office or finance tasks on a 1M-token context with images, for teams already on Tencent Cloud or happy to verify an account there.
Ahead on
- Agent ergonomics, 86 against 75
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where Cloudflare Workers AI loses 3 points for them
Watch for
Weights, licence and system card are promised but not published; tencent/Hy4 didn't answer on Hugging Face on 11 November
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Transparency & trust Cloudflare Workers AI +24
Cloudflare Workers AI 76
Closed service under the Self-Serve Subscription Agreement and service-specific terms with a Workers AI section. The hosted models are open-weight with licence links on their pages, and the SDKs are Apache-2.0 and MIT (18 of 30). The data usage page, the service-specific terms and the privacy policy of 4 November 2025 agree on ownership and no training. The privacy policy gives retention criteria, not periods, the two documents differ on use to improve services, and the DPA the terms link was not read (20 of 30). No deprecation policy was found. The changelog posts dated notices, among them the 21 October deprecation of workers-ai-provider with no end date, and section 8 of the agreement lets Cloudflare modify or discontinue a service without notice (8 of 20). A sub-processor page exists and links a list for Cloudflare services, which we did not read. Model pages are tagged Cloudflare-hosted, and where a request runs is not stated beyond Cloudflare's network (10 of 20). 18 + 20 + 8 + 10 = 56.
Tencent Hy4 52
Model reading for hy4 on Tencent Cloud TokenHub. Platform facts are the tencent-tokenhub listing's (checked 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Closed service under the TokenHub terms, but Tencent's release headline calls Hy4 open source while the weights and system card are only promised 'in the coming days', with no licence stated, and tencent/Hy4 didn't answer on Hugging Face on 11 November (14 of 30). Terms and FAQ agree inputs aren't used for training; the privacy policy renders only with JavaScript and wasn't read (15 of 30). Dated retirement notices and shutdown fields (13 of 20). Processing generally in mainland China for the China site, Singapore for the international one (13 of 20). Every benchmark in the release is Tencent's own or a partner's. 14 + 15 + 13 + 13 = 55.
Reliability Cloudflare Workers AI +22
Cloudflare Workers AI 68
Hosted reading. www.cloudflarestatus.com is a Statuspage with Workers AI, AI Gateway and API as separate components (20). The incidents feed read on 9 October held 50 incidents from 21 September to 8 October 2026, none naming Workers AI or AI Gateway. The feed read on 1 November holds 50 incidents from 16 to 31 October. Workers AI is listed only in "Issues with AI Security for Apps" on 27 October, intermittent failures in unsafe topic detection with impact none, resolved after 38 minutes. The 23 October network incident, labelled major, describes some traffic between Ashburn and Atlanta and some customers in North America, so it reads as partial, as this run's other Cloudflare re-checks read regional incidents. The history page loads by script, so 3 August to 20 September and 9 to 15 October went unread. The 28 July changelog that cited 429 and 3040 capacity errors has left the 90 days, so the line is 12 of 30 (10 before), as cloudflare-r2 and cloudflare-mcp read the same page with an unread stretch on 1 November. Limits are published per task type, 300 requests a minute for text generation and 20 or 50 a minute per paid model, unchanged since 17 September (15). A 429 carries code 3036 for a spent free allocation or 3040 for capacity, rejectIfBusy fails fast, the batch route queues work, and the Cloudflare API returns retry-after and Ratelimit headers for its own limit. No Retry-After or backoff figures were found for a 3040 (11 of 15). No SLA for Workers AI was found. The legal index names only an enterprise support and SLA page, which we did not read (0). The limits page says Workers AI is generally available, with lower limits possible on beta models (10). 20 + 12 + 15 + 11 + 0 + 10 = 68.
Tencent Hy4 46
Model reading for hy4 on Tencent Cloud TokenHub. Platform facts are the tencent-tokenhub listing's (checked 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. No public status page (0) and so no incident record to read (5 of 30). Per-model rate limits only in the console and DescribeModelQuota (8 of 15). Six 429 codes, Retry-After and backoff advice (13 of 15). The TokenHub SLA promises 99.5% a month, and Hy4 is Tencent's own model, so the third-party exclusion doesn't apply (10). Released as hy4 on 4 November, a separate id from hy4-preview, with no preview label (10). 0 + 5 + 8 + 13 + 10 + 10 = 46.
Payments & pricing Cloudflare Workers AI +18
Cloudflare Workers AI 63
x402 is in beta on POST /ai/run since 30 September 2026 for four of 69 models. It still needs a Cloudflare API token, a United States account and a card on file, and the per-model and OpenAI-style routes are not covered. We did not call it (12 of 40). Per-model token, image and audio prices and the neuron rate are published without a login (20). 10,000 neurons a day are free on the Workers Free plan, and the pricing page asks for a paid plan only past that. We did not sign up to confirm that no card is asked for (20). A person creates the account and the first token in a browser, and the x402 route needs both (0). The Machine Payments page (last updated 30 September) and the pricing page (20 October) were re-read on 1 November and say the same. 12 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 52. Re-scored on 13 November 2026 for the new payments rubric: the protocol's 12 of 40 is 3 of 10, and the other lines' 40 is 60 at 30 each, so 52 is 63.
Tencent Hy4 45
Model reading for hy4 on Tencent Cloud TokenHub. Platform facts are the tencent-tokenhub listing's (checked 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. No machine payment protocol (0). The price page, updated 9 November, lists ¥6 input, ¥0.3 cached and ¥18 output per million tokens, with Hy4 billed at 50% until 31 December 2026 (20). TokenHub's campaign of 1M free tokens per language model, read on 1 November, isn't confirmed for hy4 on the price page, so half (10 of 20, a judgement call). A person signs up with real-name verification (0). 0 + 20 + 10 + 0 = 30. Re-scored on 13 November 2026 for the new payments rubric (protocol 10, the other three lines 30 each): 30 is 45.
Agent ergonomics Tencent Hy4 +11
Cloudflare Workers AI 75
Model reading of the checklist (tool use, structured output, caching, context, batch, SDKs, errors). OpenAI-style tool calling with parallel_tool_calls on models tagged for it, and embedded function calling in Workers. The changelog of 17 February 2026 fixed six faults, five of them in tool-call round trips (15 of 20). json_object and json_schema formats. The docs say schema adherence is not guaranteed and JSON Mode does not stream, and the page's list of six supported models names three that were retired in May (9 of 15). Prefix caching on by default for select models, x-session-affinity, cached counts in usage and published cached prices (12 of 15). 1,048,576 tokens on DeepSeek V4 and GLM-5.3 and 256,000 on Gemma 4, against 24,000 on Llama 3.3 70B fast (12 of 15). An asynchronous batch route on tagged models with a 10 MB payload limit and no stated discount (7 of 10). The OpenAI SDKs work with a changed base URL, with Responses limited to two models and no streaming. Cloudflare's own SDKs cover TypeScript, Python and Go (9 of 10). Errors carry an internal code and message, and a 429 tells a spent allocation from a capacity limit (11 of 15).
Tencent Hy4 86
Model reading for hy4 on Tencent Cloud TokenHub. Platform facts are the tencent-tokenhub listing's (checked 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Function calling is marked for hy4 in the model list (18 of 20). Structured output marked (13 of 15). Cache-hit price published, ¥0.3 against ¥6 input (14 of 15). 1M-token context with 960K input and 64K output (15). Batch at half price covered Hy3 and Hy4 preview on 1 November; whether it covers hy4 wasn't re-read (3 of 10). OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs with a changed base URL, plus Tencent Cloud's SDK and CLI for the control plane (8 of 10). Errors with code, messages, upstream status and request ID (15 of 15). 18 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 3 + 8 + 15 = 86.
Security & auth Cloudflare Workers AI +9
Cloudflare Workers AI 80
Model reading. Cloudflare API tokens are revocable, limited to Workers AI Read or Edit on chosen accounts, and take an expiry and an IP address filter. Permission is per account, not per model, and the API reference also accepts the older global API key (27 of 30). The data usage page and the service-specific terms of 28 September 2026 say Customer Content is not used to train models without consent. The data page adds that it is not used to improve services, while clause 9 of the same terms section allows use as needed to provide and improve the Services (17 of 20). The data page says content may be stored if a storage service is used with Workers AI. It gives no retention period for inference inputs and no explicit zero-retention statement, and AI Gateway logs prompts and responses by default when a call is routed through a gateway (9 of 15). Gateway logs record prompt, response, tokens and cost per request, and the dashboard shows neuron usage. Direct calls have no per-request log that we found, and account audit logs were not read this run (9 of 15). security.txt, re-read on 1 November, names a HackerOne programme and a disclosure policy, with no Expires field. Cloudflare's ISO certifications page, read on 1 November, says Cloudflare is certified to ISO 27001 (since 2019, now to its 2022 edition), ISO 27018 and ISO 27701, with a scope of the Cloudflare global cloud platform, which doesn't name Workers AI. 2 held back for the missing Expires field, which RFC 9116 requires, the reading cloudflare-r2 gave the same evidence on 1 November (18 of 20, 15 before, when certifications went unread). 27 + 17 + 9 + 9 + 18 = 80.
Tencent Hy4 71
Model reading for hy4 on Tencent Cloud TokenHub. Platform facts are the tencent-tokenhub listing's (checked 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Bearer keys limited by model, service, IP range and token quota, long-lived with no rotation (26 of 30). The terms say inputs aren't used to train Tencent Cloud's own models, and Hy4 is first party, so no third party's terms apply (14 of 20). Retention only as long as the service needs, no periods (7 of 15). Per-call audit logs and optional full logs to the customer's CLS (14 of 15). No security.txt; Tencent's TSRC bounty covers Tencent Cloud; no certification checked (10 of 20). 26 + 14 + 7 + 14 + 10 = 71.
Schema & documentation Cloudflare Workers AI +7
Cloudflare Workers AI 80
Model reading, scored on the API lines. Cloudflare's public OpenAPI 3.0.3 document, updated 8 October 2026, has 14 paths and 15 operations under /ai/. /ai/run/{model_name} takes 13 input shapes by task and lists only 200 and 400 responses, and the OpenAI-style /ai/v1/ routes are not in it. Each model page links JSON Schemas for input and output, and GET /ai/models/schema returns them (22 of 25). llms.txt for Workers AI and a Markdown copy of every page (10). Model pages give a description, capability tags, context window and price, and the batch, caching and reject-busy pages say when to use each. Nothing says when not to pick a model (14 of 20). Parameters are typed with defaults, enums and nullability on the model pages (12 of 15). TypeScript, Python and curl examples on every model page and a table of 17 error codes with HTTP statuses. The quick start and the OpenAI page still use @cf/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct, which is on the 30 May 2026 retirement list and absent from the catalogue (11 of 15). A dated product changelog with RSS. Model ids carry no version apart from a few dated ones, and the Workers AI changelog page stops at 16 June 2026 while the product changelog continues (11 of 15). The OpenAPI document was not re-read on 1 November. The REST quick start (last updated 15 September) and the OpenAI page (18 September) still name @cf/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct on 1 November, and the error table still has 17 codes.
Tencent Hy4 73
Model reading for hy4 on Tencent Cloud TokenHub. Platform facts are the tencent-tokenhub listing's (checked 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. No OpenAPI file for inference; field pages for the OpenAI and Anthropic formats as TokenHub implements them (12 of 25). llms.txt with Markdown copies (10). The model list, updated 9 November, gives hy4's context, input and output limits and marks thinking, structured output, function calling, caching and image understanding; computer use, which Tencent's release names, isn't marked (13 of 20). Typed field pages (10 of 15). Examples in five languages and an error page of 30 codes (14 of 15). Dated release notes, with hy4 added on 4 November (14 of 15). 12 + 10 + 13 + 10 + 14 + 14 = 73.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Cloudflare Workers AI | Tencent Hy4 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 68 | 46 | Cloudflare Workers AI +22 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 80 | 73 | Cloudflare Workers AI +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 75 | 86 | Tencent Hy4 +11 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 80 | 71 | Cloudflare Workers AI +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 63 | 45 | Cloudflare Workers AI +18 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 72 | 73 | Tencent Hy4 +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 76 | 52 | Cloudflare Workers AI +24 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| Total | BB 70.6/100 | B 64/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Cloudflare Workers AI | Tencent Hy4 |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Cloudflare | Tencent (Hy team) |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | on some endpoints | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Cloudflare's Self-Serve Subscription Agreement. Each hosted model carries its own open-weight licence, linked from its model page. The cloudflare SDKs are Apache-2.0, workers-ai-provider is MIT and the OpenAPI repository is BSD-3-Clause | Hosted model under the Tencent Cloud TokenHub terms. Tencent says weights and a system card will follow; no licence is stated yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-21 | 2026-11-04 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-12 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 380k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
Verdicts
Cloudflare Workers AI
Per-model prices, rate limits and JSON Schemas are public, 10,000 neurons a day are free, and x402 payment is in beta on /ai/run for four models. No SLA was found, three models moved to paid-only access on 28 July 2026 with no notice, and the REST quick start still uses a model retired in May.
Tencent Hy4
Tencent's flagship model is on TokenHub as hy4, with a 1M-token context, image understanding, function calling and caching, at ¥6 input and ¥18 output per million tokens, half price until the end of 2026. The weights it is called open source for aren't published yet, and every benchmark is Tencent's own.
Before you call either
Cloudflare Workers AI
- Check the model page before calling. Eight models need Workers Paid or AI Gateway credits and return 403 with code 5035 on the Free plan
- Read the internal code on a 429. 3036 means the day's 10,000 free neurons are spent until 00:00 UTC, 3040 means capacity, so retry later
- Set
options.rejectIfBusyto fail fast, or add?queueRequest=truefor the batch route when the answer can wait - Send the same
x-session-affinityvalue on every turn of a session to reach the prefix cache and the cached-input price - Use
createAIfromagents/models/ai-sdkfor the Vercel AI SDK.workers-ai-provideris deprecated and feature frozen since 21 October 2026
Tencent Hy4
- Use model id hy4 on TokenHub's OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible endpoints; hy4-preview is a separate, older model
- Keep input under 960K tokens and expect at most 64K output
- Reuse prompt prefixes: cached input is ¥0.3 against ¥6
- Check the price page for the end of the 50% discount on 31 December 2026 before budgeting
- Read rate limits from the console or DescribeModelQuota; the public docs don't give them for chat models
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Cloudflare Workers AI or Tencent Hy4?
Cloudflare Workers AI scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Tencent Hy4's 64 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Tencent Hy4 leads on agent ergonomics.
Do Cloudflare Workers AI and Tencent Hy4 need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Cloudflare Workers AI and Tencent Hy4 without installing anything?
Cloudflare Workers AI has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai. No hosted endpoint is listed for Tencent Hy4.
Other comparisons with Cloudflare Workers AI or Tencent Hy4
- Amazon Bedrock vs Cloudflare Workers AI
- Amazon Bedrock vs Tencent Hy4
- Claude API vs Cloudflare Workers AI
- Claude API vs Tencent Hy4
- Antseed vs Cloudflare Workers AI
- Antseed vs Tencent Hy4
- Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models vs Cloudflare Workers AI
- Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models vs Tencent Hy4
- BlockRun.AI vs Cloudflare Workers AI
- BlockRun.AI vs Tencent Hy4
- Cerebras Inference vs Cloudflare Workers AI
- Cerebras Inference vs Tencent Hy4
- Claude Fable 5.2 vs Cloudflare Workers AI
- Claude Fable 5.2 vs Tencent Hy4
- Claude Mythos 5.2 vs Cloudflare Workers AI
- Claude Mythos 5.2 vs Tencent Hy4
- Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Cloudflare Workers AI
- Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Tencent Hy4
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Cohere Chat API (Command models)
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs DeepInfra
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs DeepSeek API
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Eden AI
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Glimpse
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Fireworks AI Inference
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Gemini 4 Carbon
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Gemini 4 Hydrogen
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Gemini Developer API
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs GroqCloud
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Hugging Face Inference Providers
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Jais 3
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Meta Model API
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs MiniMax API
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Mistral AI API
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Muse Ember
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Muse Spark Open
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Novita AI
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs OpenAI API
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs OpenRouter
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Prism Inference
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Router.com (Ramp Router)
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Beam 1.0
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs RouterPlus
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs SambaCloud
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs SiliconFlow
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Simplismart
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs StepFun API
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs SWE-2 Flash
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Tencent Cloud TokenHub
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Together AI Inference
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs Vertex AI (Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform)
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs xAI API (Grok)
- Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs Tencent Hy4
- DeepInfra vs Tencent Hy4
- DeepSeek API vs Tencent Hy4
- Eden AI vs Tencent Hy4
- Glimpse vs Tencent Hy4
- Fireworks AI Inference vs Tencent Hy4
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs Tencent Hy4
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen vs Tencent Hy4
- Gemini Developer API vs Tencent Hy4
- GroqCloud vs Tencent Hy4
- Hugging Face Inference Providers vs Tencent Hy4
- Tencent Hy4 vs Jais 3
- Tencent Hy4 vs Meta Model API
- Tencent Hy4 vs MiniMax API
- Tencent Hy4 vs Mistral AI API
- Tencent Hy4 vs Muse Ember
- Tencent Hy4 vs Muse Spark Open
- Tencent Hy4 vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
- Tencent Hy4 vs Novita AI
- Tencent Hy4 vs OpenAI API
- Tencent Hy4 vs OpenRouter
- Tencent Hy4 vs Prism Inference
- Tencent Hy4 vs Router.com (Ramp Router)
- Tencent Hy4 vs Beam 1.0
- Tencent Hy4 vs RouterPlus
- Tencent Hy4 vs SambaCloud
- Tencent Hy4 vs SiliconFlow
- Tencent Hy4 vs Simplismart
- Tencent Hy4 vs StepFun API
- Tencent Hy4 vs SWE-2 Flash
- Tencent Hy4 vs Tencent Cloud TokenHub
- Tencent Hy4 vs Together AI Inference
- Tencent Hy4 vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Tencent Hy4 vs Vertex AI (Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform)
- Tencent Hy4 vs xAI API (Grok)
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-hy4.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-workers-ai.json·/api/v1/tools/hy4.json - From a terminal
anchor compare cloudflare-workers-ai hy4(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "cloudflare-workers-ai", "b": "hy4"}at/mcp, no key