# Crusoe Cloud vs Runpod

> Crusoe Cloud scores 63.4 (B) to Runpod's 53.5 (D) for gpu compute. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-runpod
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-runpod.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-runpod.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-runpod.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 Runpod's 53.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Runpod leads on maintenance & community. 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
- Runpod: grade D, 53.5/100, rank #705 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/runpod.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/runpod.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 35
- Security & auth, 74 against 60
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 63

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

### Runpod (D)

Good for: Cost-sensitive inference and batch work that wants the widest GPU choice, from consumer cards to B300, with an MCP control plane.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 76

Watch for: Data-centre outages of 6 to 24 hours in each of July, August and September 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Crusoe Cloud | Runpod | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 66 | 35 | Crusoe Cloud +31 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 81 | Runpod +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 45 | 47 | Runpod +2 |
| 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 | 82 | Runpod +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 63 | Crusoe Cloud +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.4 · B** | **53.5 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Crusoe Cloud | Runpod |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Crusoe | Runpod |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cloud.crusoe.ai/v1` | `https://api.runpod.ai/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| 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 | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 41 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-09-15 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-03-24 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2025-08-07 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | yes |
| 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 | 314 stars, 22k npm/wk, 147k PyPI/wk |
| 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.

**Runpod.** Per-second billing across more than a dozen serverless GPU classes, H100 at $4.79 and A100 80 GB at $2.72 an hour. Data-centre outages of 6 to 24 hours in each of July, August and September 2026.

## 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.

### Runpod

1. Create a Restricted or Read Only key per endpoint for the agent, not an All key
2. Use REST v2 at api.runpod.io/v2 with a Bearer header; avoid GraphQL, which puts the key in the URL
3. Fetch `/run` results within 30 minutes and `/runsync` results within 1 minute, or they're gone
4. Call `/retry` on a failed job ID rather than submitting a duplicate job
5. Check `/health` before relying on an endpoint idle for a week, since max workers drop to 0

## Questions

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

Crusoe Cloud scores 63.4 (B) on agent readiness against Runpod's 53.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Runpod leads on maintenance & community.

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

Crusoe Cloud needs an API key. Runpod takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

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

Yes. Crusoe Cloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloud.crusoe.ai/v1 and Runpod at https://api.runpod.ai/v2.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Crusoe Cloud or Runpod

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