Head to head · GPU compute · October 2026 research run
Crusoe Cloud vs Together GPU Clusters
Crusoe Cloud scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Together GPU Clusters's 58.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Together GPU Clusters leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do gpu compute.
Best GPU and serverless compute for AI workloads · All 231 gpu compute comparisons
Which one, for what
Best 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, 76 against 38
- Security & auth, 74 against 68
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 65
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.
Best for Training, fine-tuning and batch jobs that need several 8-GPU nodes with InfiniBand, run by a pipeline that creates and deletes clusters.
Ahead on
- Schema & documentation, 92 against 79
- Agent ergonomics, 55 against 45
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where Crusoe Cloud loses 3 points for them
Watch for
Provisioning takes 10 minutes to an hour, and a cluster can't be paused or scaled to zero
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.
Reliability Crusoe Cloud +38
Crusoe Cloud 76
Graded as a hosted service on the REST API. Statuspage at status.crusoecloud.com with components per region and service (20). From 4 August to 2 November 2026 the history shows five incidents, each limited to one region or a subset of resources, so all read as partial. They were VM and Kubernetes cluster creation in us-east2 for about 7.5 hours (2 September, minor), network errors in us-east1 (3 September, no stated impact), a subset of VMs showing as UNSPECIFIED in us-east2 (9 September, no stated impact), Shared Storage, Object Storage and the container registry unreachable in eu-norway1 for about 3 hours 54 minutes (29 September, labelled critical) and a facility issue that powered off a subset of compute instances in us-east2-a from 15 to 18 October (labelled critical). Scheduled maintenance isn't counted. Minor incidents only (20). Rate limits carry numbers only for Serverless Inference (500,000 tokens and 30 requests a minute per model without a payment method, 2,000,000 and 600 with one); none were found for the infrastructure API, whose MCP server throttles itself to 60 requests a minute (8 of 15). Serverless Inference documents 429 and 503 with exponential backoff and x-ratelimit-* headers; no Retry-After, no idempotency keys and no retry guidance for infrastructure writes were found (8 of 15). SLA version 8.0 (21 July 2026) of 99.5 per cent a month per GPU virtual machine and per persistent or shared disk, with credits of 10, 25 or 100 per cent (10). The v1 API is labelled Latest and the services graded are generally available; the MCP server is in preview (10).
Together GPU Clusters 38
Read with the hosted lines. status.together.ai lists the website, the playground and serverless models with no component for GPU clusters, and a vendor page with no component for the product takes 15 in this run, as for Together's Code Sandbox and fine-tuning listings (15). No incident history for clusters can be read (5). No rate limits for the clusters API found (0). Together's docs give 429 and 503 backoff guidance for its APIs, per the inference listing's 1 November check, and the CLI has --non-interactive and --json for scripted retries, but creation has no idempotency key (8). No SLA for clusters found; the published 99% commitment covers provisioned inference throughput only (0). Generally available since 9 September 2025 and out of the CLI's beta paths since 22 October 2026, with preemptible nodes in preview (10). 15+5+0+8+0+10 = 38.
Schema & documentation Together GPU Clusters +13
Crusoe Cloud 79
A Swagger 2.0 description for /v1 and /v1alpha5, linked from the reference page and kept in crusoecloud/client-go, and an OpenAPI description for the Intelligence Foundry API (25). llms.txt and a Markdown twin of each docs page (10). Every one of the 257 operations in the repository copy has a one-line summary, 74 have a longer description, and fields are described; few say when not to call (11). 64 enums and 208 required lists, though limit is typed as a string and instance types and locations are plain strings; the file declares no security scheme (10). 1,231 examples with request and response samples, and 400, 401, 403, 404 and 500 responses with a code and message body; no error catalogue and 429 appears on one operation (10). Versioned paths, dated Crusoe Updates entries with RSS and Atom feeds, and tagged Go client releases; the updates do not list API changes field by field (13).
Together GPU Clusters 92
Public OpenAPI 3.1 for /v1/compute/clusters and shared volumes, MIT, embedded in every reference page (25). llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every page (10). The docs say when to choose Kubernetes or Slurm and each capacity type, and the management page carries instructions for agents on reporting live availability and prices (18). Enums for cluster type, billing type, GPU type and status, required fields marked (13). CLI, Python, TypeScript and console steps on each task, with 402 and 403 cases documented, though no error catalogue for the clusters API (11). Versioned SDKs and a dated changelog with cluster entries (15). 25+10+18+13+11+15 = 92.
Transparency & trust Crusoe Cloud +12
Crusoe Cloud 77
Closed service under Terms of Service version 1.10, effective 10 August 2026, with ten earlier versions kept on the legal page; the Go client and MCP package are MIT (15). The Privacy Notice (version 1.3, 12 March 2026) covers Service Data and the Data Processing and Security Terms (version 1.3, 14 July 2026) cover Customer Data, with deletion on instruction and at the end of the term, and the Intelligence Foundry terms say inputs, outputs and training data are not used to train models without opt-in consent; no retention periods are given in numbers (22). The terms promise 90 days' notice before discontinuing a service or changing a customer-facing API incompatibly, and a deprecation page gives dates such as 8 November 2026 for old CSI drivers, announced 15 September; model deprecations are logged on the day they take effect, six models on 12 September and 2 October 2026 (17). Seven data centre zones are published; the data processing terms point to a sub-processor list that was not found in the pages read (10).
Together GPU Clusters 65
Closed service under Together's terms, with Apache-2.0 SDKs, which don't raise the line for a closed API (15). The privacy policy's data table covers GPU clusters, per the 4 November Code Sandbox check, and the billing page states when volumes are deleted after credit runs out, with no retention period for data on deleted clusters (15). The 3.0 breaking change came with a migration guide on the day, and reservations carry dated end-of-term emails, with no notice period for API changes found (8). Regions are listed through the API and US regions appear in examples; subprocessors and data locations for clusters were not established (8). 15+15+8+8 = 46.
Agent ergonomics Together GPU Clusters +10
Crusoe Cloud 45
Lists take limit or page_size on 16 of about 104 list calls, and VM lists filter by id, name, type, location and state; no field selection (12 of 25). Token pagination with next and previous tokens and a sort parameter where present; most lists return everything (12). Errors are an HTTP status with code and message, and long-running calls return an operation with state and result to poll; no documented list of error codes (10). No idempotency key or safe-retry guidance found; the preview MCP server has read tools only, and its annotations were not read (4). VM create needs a name, type, location and SSH key and installs a monitoring agent by default; the Go client is the only official SDK found, beside a CLI and a Terraform provider, and other languages must code the request signature (7).
Together GPU Clusters 55
Cluster objects are compact, and --json gives machine-readable output, but list calls take no field selection (15). No pagination or filters on the clusters list (8). 402 and 403 with readable messages such as "Insufficient credits for cluster creation", and troubleshooting for common failures (12). Status polling until Ready is documented and deletes run non-interactively, but there is no idempotency key on creation and a duplicate create bills a second cluster (8). Official Python and TypeScript SDKs and a CLI, though a create takes GPU type, region, driver and CUDA versions, cluster type and billing type (12). 15+8+12+8+12 = 55.
Payments & pricing Crusoe Cloud +10
Crusoe Cloud 30
No machine payment protocol (0). Per-GPU-hour, per-vCPU-hour, per-GiB and per-token prices published without a login, though spot prices and on-demand prices for GB200, B200 and MI355X are contact sales (20). $5 of introductory credits cover Serverless Inference and Serverless Fine-Tuning without a payment method; GPU machines, the product graded here, need a non-prepaid credit card (10 of 20). Signup is a browser flow with Google, GitHub or an emailed code, and the first key is made in the console (0).
Together GPU Clusters 20
No machine payment protocol (0). Per GPU-hour prices for each capacity type and per GiB-month storage published without a login (20). No free trial, and creation needs credit for the full reservation or a minimum on-demand period (0). Sign-up and credit purchase are browser steps (0). 0+20+0+0 = 20.
Security & auth Crusoe Cloud +6
Crusoe Cloud 74
Access key and secret key with optional expiry, deletable in the console or through /users/tokens. Requests are signed with HMAC-SHA256 and a timestamp, so no secret is sent and none travels in a URL. Keys inherit their creator's roles and cannot be narrowed further; service accounts with their own credentials appear in the API description and the Terraform provider 1.6.0 (24). org-reader and project-reader roles give read-only access and the MCP server exposes no write tools; no confirmation step for destructive API calls (14). Returns infrastructure metadata, and the MCP docs warn that it is sent to the assistant and that an agent with a shell can still run the CLI (10). Audit log of 90 days of control-plane actions with actor, IP, surface and result, readable through the API by admins; read events are not logged (13). security.txt valid until 1 March 2027 with no Policy field, ISO 27001, ISO 42001 and SOC 2 Type I and II claimed on the cloud page, customer-managed encryption keys; no bug bounty found, the trust centre was unreadable, and the apt install line sets [trusted=yes] (13).
Together GPU Clusters 68
Project-scoped API keys, revocable with optional expiry, read as Together's other listings read the same key model (30). Admin and editor roles with no read-only role. Only admins get the admin kubeconfig, which has cluster-admin rights, and OIDC lets editors use kubectl under RBAC. Deletes run without confirmation when --non-interactive is passed (8). The API returns cluster state, not third-party content (10). Invoices itemise reserved, on-demand and storage charges, and no audit log for cluster operations was found (5). security.txt with a HackerOne route, per the 1 November check of the inference listing (15). 30+8+10+5+15 = 68.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Crusoe Cloud | Together GPU Clusters | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 76 | 38 | Crusoe Cloud +38 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 79 | 92 | Together GPU Clusters +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 45 | 55 | Together GPU Clusters +10 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 74 | 68 | Crusoe Cloud +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 30 | 20 | Crusoe Cloud +10 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 76 | 75 | Crusoe Cloud +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 77 | 65 | Crusoe Cloud +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| Total | B 62.4/100 | C 58.1/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Crusoe Cloud | Together GPU Clusters |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Crusoe | Together AI |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.cloud.crusoe.ai/v1 | https://api.together.ai/v1/compute/clusters |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | |
| Auth | API key | API 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 | Proprietary service under Together's terms of service. The Python SDK and CLI are Apache-2.0 and the OpenAPI document is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 41 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-27 | 2026-10-22 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no date given |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 7 npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
Together GPU Clusters
No score change since it was listed.
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, and serverless models were withdrawn in September and October 2026 on the day they were announced, despite 90-day notice terms.
Together GPU Clusters
Multi-node H100 to B300 clusters on Kubernetes or Slurm, created and deleted headlessly through an OpenAPI-described API, a CLI with JSON output and two SDKs, at published GPU-hour prices. Clusters take 10 minutes to an hour to provision, can't be paused, and have no status component, SLA or idempotent create.
Before you call either
Crusoe Cloud
- 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 sendAuthorization: Bearer 1.0:<access_key_id>:<signature>. - Use
https://api.cloud.crusoe.ai/v1. Some docs pages and the MCP server still nameapi.crusoecloud.comand/v1alpha5. - 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. - Managed AI uses separate Intelligence API keys and hosts,
api.inference.crusoecloud.comfor OpenAI-compatible calls andapi.intelligence.crusoecloud.comfor files and fine-tuning jobs. - 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.
- Check Crusoe Updates before pinning a Serverless Inference model. Six models were withdrawn on the day of announcement, so keep a fallback model id ready.
Together GPU Clusters
- Use
tg clusters, nottg beta clusters, which stopped working with CLI 3.0 on 22 October 2026 - Pass
--jsonand--non-interactive, polltg clusters retrieveuntil status is Ready, and delete the cluster in a cleanup step - Check for an existing cluster by name before retrying a create, since creation has no idempotency key
- Read live availability from the regions API and prices from the pricing page; the regions response has no prices
- Use a project admin's key when the task needs the kubeconfig, since other roles get none
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Crusoe Cloud or Together GPU Clusters?
Crusoe Cloud scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Together GPU Clusters's 58.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Together GPU Clusters leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics.
Do Crusoe Cloud and Together GPU Clusters need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Crusoe Cloud and Together GPU Clusters without installing anything?
Yes. Crusoe Cloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloud.crusoe.ai/v1 and Together GPU Clusters at https://api.together.ai/v1/compute/clusters.
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- Crusoe Cloud vs Northflank
- Crusoe Cloud vs Replicate Deployments
- Crusoe Cloud vs Runpod
- Crusoe Cloud vs Thunder Compute
- Crusoe Cloud vs Vast.ai
- Crusoe Cloud vs Verda
- GPUsMarket vs Together GPU Clusters
- Hugging Face Inference Endpoints vs Together GPU Clusters
- Hyperbolic vs Together GPU Clusters
- Koyeb vs Together GPU Clusters
- Lambda Cloud vs Together GPU Clusters
- Massed Compute vs Together GPU Clusters
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- Nebius AI Cloud vs Together GPU Clusters
- Northflank vs Together GPU Clusters
- Replicate Deployments vs Together GPU Clusters
- Runpod vs Together GPU Clusters
- Thunder Compute vs Together GPU Clusters
- Together GPU Clusters vs Vast.ai
- Together GPU Clusters vs Verda
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-together-gpu-clusters.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/crusoe-cloud.json·/api/v1/tools/together-gpu-clusters.json - From a terminal
anchor compare crusoe-cloud together-gpu-clusters(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "crusoe-cloud", "b": "together-gpu-clusters"}at/mcp, no key