# Glimpse vs SambaCloud

> SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) to Glimpse's 48.6 (D) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against Glimpse's 48.6 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do llm inference.

- Glimpse: grade D, 48.6/100, rank #915 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/elorian-glimpse.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/elorian-glimpse.json
- SambaCloud: grade B, 66.4/100, rank #321 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sambanova.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sambanova.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 326 models comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inference/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Glimpse (D)

Good for: Visual question answering, video captioning and counting over images and video at a low per-token price, where a research preview reached through OpenRouter is acceptable.

Watch for: Labelled a research preview, with no public API docs, model card, changelog or deprecation policy from Elorian

### SambaCloud (B)

Good for: Agents that want open-weight models behind an OpenAI or Anthropic client with a free start and prices an agent can read from the API.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 85 against 38
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 60
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 51
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 36

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 2.5 out of 5

Watch for: Production models get a notice of two to three weeks, and 13 model ids were removed between 9 March and 9 June 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Glimpse | SambaCloud | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 38 | 85 | SambaCloud +47 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 81 | SambaCloud +21 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 67 | SambaCloud +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 58 | SambaCloud +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 40 | SambaCloud +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 77 | SambaCloud +26 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 36 | 63 | SambaCloud +27 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **48.6 · D** | **66.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Glimpse | SambaCloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Elorian | SambaNova Systems, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://openrouter.ai/api/v1` | `https://api.sambanova.ai/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Closed model and service under the Elorian AI, Inc. terms of service (California law). Weights not released. | Proprietary service under the SambaCloud Terms of Service. The SDKs and the OpenAPI document are Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Terms last updated |  | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated |  | 2023-05-27 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 2 stars, 76 npm/wk, 6.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | 3.5/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Glimpse.** Glimpse reads images and video at $0.60 input and $3.00 output per million tokens, and OpenRouter serves it with tools, structured output and a 262,144-token context. It is a research preview with no public Elorian docs, model card or status page, and Elorian's terms allow training on submitted content unless a paid user opts out.

**SambaCloud.** Per-token prices and the model list are readable without a key at `/v1/models`, and a free tier needs no card. Production models get two to three weeks' notice before removal, 13 model ids left between March and June 2026, and the docs disagree with the live catalogue on MiniMax-M2.7.

## Before you call either

### Glimpse

1. Call it through OpenRouter as `elorian/glimpse` at https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions. Elorian's own API docs sit behind a console sign-in
2. Send video as a `video_url` content part, as a public URL or a base64 data URL. Batch requests are not available for this model
3. Set `max_tokens` yourself. The endpoint allows up to 256,000 output tokens, and visual reasoning spends many of them
4. Honour Retry-After on 429 and 503. With a single provider, a 503 means the Together deployment is unavailable, not that another host can take over
5. Treat counts and timestamps as unverified. Elorian's terms say outputs need independent human review before anyone relies on them

### SambaCloud

1. Call `GET https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/models` at start-up and use only ids it returns. The docs name models the endpoint no longer lists
2. Read `x-ratelimit-remaining-requests` and `x-ratelimit-remaining-requests-day` on every response. The free tier allows 20 requests a day per model
3. Treat 429 `queue_full` and 503 `maintenance` as retryable after a delay, and 410 `model_deprecated` as a signal to change model
4. Validate JSON output yourself. Schema enforcement is best effort and `strict: true` changes nothing
5. Check `max_completion_tokens` per model. DeepSeek-V3.1 caps output at 7,168 tokens and Llama 3.3 70B at 3,072

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Glimpse or SambaCloud?

SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against Glimpse's 48.6 (D), and leads in every scored category.

### Do Glimpse and SambaCloud need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Glimpse and SambaCloud without installing anything?

Yes. Glimpse has a hosted endpoint at https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 and SambaCloud at https://api.sambanova.ai/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Glimpse or SambaCloud

- [Claude API vs Glimpse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-elorian-glimpse.md)
- [Claude API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Antseed vs Glimpse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-elorian-glimpse.md)
- [Antseed vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-sambanova.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs Glimpse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-elorian-glimpse.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Glimpse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-elorian-glimpse.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs Glimpse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-elorian-glimpse.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs Glimpse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-elorian-glimpse.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-sambanova.md)
- [DeepInfra vs Glimpse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-elorian-glimpse.md)
- [DeepInfra vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-sambanova.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs Glimpse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-elorian-glimpse.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-sambanova.md)
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- [Glimpse vs Mistral AI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elorian-glimpse-vs-mistral-api.md)
- [Glimpse vs Muse Spark Open](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elorian-glimpse-vs-muse-spark-open.md)
- [Glimpse vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elorian-glimpse-vs-nemotron-3-5-super-vl.md)
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