# Crusoe Cloud vs Lambda Cloud

> Crusoe Cloud scores 63.4 (B) to Lambda Cloud's 50 (D) for gpu compute. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-lambda
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-lambda.md (~2,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-lambda.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-lambda.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

Crusoe Cloud scores 63.4 (B) on agent readiness against Lambda Cloud's 50 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Lambda Cloud leads on agent ergonomics. Both do gpu compute.

- Crusoe Cloud: grade B, 63.4/100, rank #396 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/crusoe-cloud.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/crusoe-cloud.json
- Lambda Cloud: grade D, 50/100, rank #781 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lambda.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lambda.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

### Crusoe Cloud (B)

Good for: Teams that want whole GPU machines or clusters with managed Kubernetes or Slurm in the US, Iceland or Norway, under an SLA, and are content to manage lifecycles themselves.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 66 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 79 against 69
- Security & auth, 74 against 60
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 76 against 5
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 58

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No idempotency key or safe-retry guidance was found for create and delete calls, which return asynchronous operations to poll.

### Lambda Cloud (D)

Good for: Agents or pipelines that need a whole GPU machine with SSH for hours, such as training or batch jobs, and will manage the lifecycle themselves.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 63 against 45

Watch for: No scale to zero, autoscaling or endpoints; an idle VM bills until terminated


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Crusoe Cloud | Lambda Cloud | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 66 | 50 | Crusoe Cloud +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 69 | Crusoe Cloud +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 45 | 63 | Lambda Cloud +18 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 74 | 60 | Crusoe Cloud +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 20 | Crusoe Cloud +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 5 | Crusoe Cloud +71 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 58 | Crusoe Cloud +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.4 · B** | **50 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Crusoe Cloud | Lambda Cloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Crusoe | Lambda |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cloud.crusoe.ai/v1` | `https://cloud.lambda.ai/api/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| Price for gpu compute | not published | $9.86 per GPU-hour |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Crusoe Cloud Platform Terms of Service. The Go client and the MCP server package are MIT. The CLI ships as binaries, and no licence file was found in the Terraform provider repository | none |
| Tools exposed | 41 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | none |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2025-08-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-01-01 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | yes |
| Popularity | 7 npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Crusoe Cloud.** The v1 REST API has a published OpenAPI description, Markdown docs, HMAC-signed keys, reader roles and a 90-day audit log, with on-demand GPU prices public. No idempotency keys or control-plane rate limits were found, spot and B200 prices go through sales, and a storage outage in eu-norway1 lasted about four hours on 29 September 2026.

**Lambda Cloud.** H100 SXM at $3.99 and B200 at $6.69 an hour with per-minute billing. No scale to zero, autoscaling or endpoints; an idle VM bills until terminated.

## Before you call either

### Crusoe Cloud

1. Sign every request. Build the payload from path, sorted query string, verb and `X-Crusoe-Timestamp`, HMAC-SHA256 it with the base64url-decoded secret, and send `Authorization: Bearer 1.0:<access_key_id>:<signature>`.
2. Use `https://api.cloud.crusoe.ai/v1`. Some docs pages and the MCP server still name `api.crusoecloud.com` and `/v1alpha5`.
3. Creates, updates and deletes return an operation. Poll the matching operations endpoint for `state`, and list existing resources by name before retrying a create, because no idempotency key was found.
4. Managed AI uses separate Intelligence API keys and hosts, `api.inference.crusoecloud.com` for OpenAI-compatible calls and `api.intelligence.crusoecloud.com` for files and fine-tuning jobs.
5. Delete a VM and its disks to stop charges. A stopped on-demand VM is not billed for compute, but its 128 GB OS disk still bills at $0.08 a GiB-month.

### Lambda Cloud

1. Call `GET /instance-types` first and read `regions_with_capacity_available` before trying to launch
2. Space launch calls 12 seconds apart; a sixth in a minute returns 429 with `global/rate-limited`
3. Branch on the error `code`, not the `message` or `suggestion`, which Lambda says may change
4. List instances before retrying a failed launch, since there's no idempotency key and a retry can start a second machine
5. Terminate the instance in a `finally` block; billing runs by the minute until you do

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Crusoe Cloud or Lambda Cloud?

Crusoe Cloud scores 63.4 (B) on agent readiness against Lambda Cloud's 50 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Lambda Cloud leads on agent ergonomics.

### Do Crusoe Cloud and Lambda Cloud need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Crusoe Cloud and Lambda Cloud without installing anything?

Yes. Crusoe Cloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloud.crusoe.ai/v1 and Lambda Cloud at https://cloud.lambda.ai/api/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Crusoe Cloud or Lambda Cloud

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