# Crusoe Cloud vs Thunder Compute

> Crusoe Cloud scores 63.4 (B) to Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C) for gpu compute. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-thunder-compute
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-thunder-compute.md (~2,900 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-thunder-compute.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-thunder-compute.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 Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. 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
- Thunder Compute: grade C, 56.1/100, rank #640 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/thunder-compute.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/thunder-compute.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:
- Schema & documentation, 79 against 70
- Security & auth, 74 against 51
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 64

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.

### Thunder Compute (C)

Good for: Agents in coding tools that rent a single persistent GPU machine for development, fine-tuning or a model server, at low hourly prices and over MCP.

Watch for: No rate limits, 429 guidance or SLA were found in the reviewed documentation, and the terms disclaim availability


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Crusoe Cloud | Thunder Compute | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 66 | 65 | Crusoe Cloud +1 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 70 | Crusoe Cloud +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 45 | 48 | Thunder Compute +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 74 | 51 | Crusoe Cloud +23 |
| 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 | 79 | Thunder Compute +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 64 | Crusoe Cloud +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.4 · B** | **56.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Crusoe Cloud | Thunder Compute |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Crusoe | Thunder Compute |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cloud.crusoe.ai/v1` | `https://api.thundercompute.com:8443/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| Price for gpu compute | not published | $0.219 per GB per month |
| 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 | Proprietary service under Thunder Compute's Terms and Conditions. The `tnr` CLI on GitHub is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 41 | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.Thunder-Compute/thunder-compute` |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-09-16 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-28 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-28 |
| 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 | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | yes |
| Popularity | 7 npm/wk | 34 stars |

## 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.

**Thunder Compute.** The hosted MCP server signs in with OAuth and separate read and write scopes, and the REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document with keyless price and availability endpoints. No rate limits, SLA or API changelog were found, instance creation has no idempotency key, and instances cannot be stopped, only deleted.

## 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.

### Thunder Compute

1. Call `GET /v2/status` or the `get_availability` tool before creating an instance. Availability can change before launch, and creation fails when a type is sold out.
2. List instances before retrying a failed create, because the call has no idempotency key.
3. Pass `public_key` on create. If omitted, the response carries a generated private key that is returned once.
4. To pause work, create a snapshot, delete the instance and later create a new instance from the snapshot. Snapshot storage keeps billing until deleted.
5. For headless use set `TNR_API_TOKEN` to a token from the console. The MCP server needs a browser sign-in on first connection.

## Questions

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

Crusoe Cloud scores 63.4 (B) on agent readiness against Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Crusoe Cloud and Thunder Compute need an API key?

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

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

Yes. Crusoe Cloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloud.crusoe.ai/v1 and Thunder Compute at https://api.thundercompute.com:8443/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Crusoe Cloud or Thunder Compute

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