Gemini 4 Hydrogen vs SambaCloud

Gemini 4 Hydrogen 45

Model reading for gemini-4-hydrogen on the Gemini API. Platform facts are the Gemini API listing's (gemini-api, re-read 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Status page at aistudio.google.com/status with no readable components or history (10 of 20) and no readable incident record (5 of 30). Rate-limit tiers and spend limits published, per-model limits in AI Studio (5 of 15). Backoff guidance for 429 and 503 and SDK retries (15). No SLA (0). Google Cloud's release notes and model page call Hydrogen generally available, a short-term release, under the same model ID; the Gemini API pages read don't name a stage, so full marks rest on Cloud's statement (10, a judgement call; Carbon, with no stage stated anywhere, got 5). 10 + 5 + 5 + 15 + 0 + 10 = 45.

SambaCloud 85

Hosted reading. Status page at status.sambanova.ai on Statuspage, with components for the API gateway, the Playground and each model, read from the page itself on 1 November (20). Its history.atom feed, read on 1 November (the 8 October reading came from the /api/ path, which robots.txt disallows, and is struck), has nothing newer than an 8-minute Playground login fault on 25 June 2026, so nothing is posted for the window from 3 August (30). Limits published per model and tier, 20 requests a minute and 20 a day on the free tier, 60 and 12,000 on the Developer tier, per the 8 October check, not re-read on 1 November (15). x-ratelimit-* headers on every response, the error table says to retry queue_full after a delay, and the SDKs retry 429 and server errors twice with backoff, per the 8 October check. No Retry-After header was found in the docs or the OpenAPI document (10 of 15). No SLA found on the legal page, re-read on 1 November, or in the terms (0). Three production models are generally available, the rest previews, per the 8 October check (10). 20+30+15+10+0+10 = 85.

Gemini 4 Hydrogen 90

Model reading for gemini-4-hydrogen on the Gemini API. Platform facts are the Gemini API listing's (gemini-api, re-read 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Function calling, with forced calls by FunctionCallingConfig on the API (20). Structured output to a response_schema, listed as supported on the Cloud model page (13 of 15). Implicit caching on prefixes of 4,096 tokens or more with durable caching on by default and explicit caches not supported, per the Cloud model page; the announcement names no cached-input price (12 of 15). 1,048,576 tokens shared between input and output, with background long decode up to 1M (15). Batch at half price on the platform (10). Python and JavaScript SDKs, and an OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions surface (10). Error codes with backoff guidance (10 of 15). 20 + 13 + 12 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 90.

SambaCloud 67

Model reading of the checklist (tool use, structured output, caching, context, batch, SDKs, errors). Function calling with tool_choice to force a function, on six listed models, and a July 2026 fix for tool calls that were buffered when streaming (17 of 20). json_object and json_schema output, best effort only, with a known failure on DeepSeek-V3.2 recorded in July 2026 (8 of 15). Automatic prompt caching on the MiniMax models only, with cached input on MiniMax-M3.1-Flash at a tenth of the input price on the 1 November pricing page, a 4,096-token minimum and no guaranteed persistence (10 of 15). 131,072-token context on four of six models, 1M on the MiniMax-M3 preview, and output capped at 7,168 tokens on DeepSeek and 3,072 on Llama 3.3 70B (8 of 15). No batch API found in the docs index or the OpenAPI document (0 of 10). Official SDKs for Python and TypeScript, and the OpenAI and Anthropic clients work with a changed base URL (10). Errors carry type, param, code and request_id (14 of 15).

Gemini 4 Hydrogen 40

Model reading for gemini-4-hydrogen on the Gemini API. Platform facts are the Gemini API listing's (gemini-api, re-read 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. No machine payment protocol (0). Prices published in Google's announcement without a login, $1.50 input and $7.50 output per million tokens, flat across the window; the Gemini API pricing page, now at aistudio.google.com, is still to be read for Hydrogen's row (20). A free tier with no card: Google's announcement puts Hydrogen on all tiers of the Gemini API, and the free tier needs no billing account per the gemini-api listing; its limits for Hydrogen are on that pricing page (20). A Google account and AI Studio for a key (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.

SambaCloud 60

No machine payment protocol (0). Per-token prices on the pricing page, read without a login on 1 November, such as gpt-oss-120b at $0.22 in and $0.59 out per 1M tokens (20). Free tier with no payment method, per the 8 October check (20). A person signs up in the console to get a key (0). Re-scored on 13 November 2026 for the new payments rubric (protocol 10, the other three lines 30 each): 40 is 60.

Gemini 4 Hydrogen 50

Model reading for gemini-4-hydrogen on the Gemini API. Platform facts are the Gemini API listing's (gemini-api, re-read 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Keys bound to a service account and restricted to the Gemini API, with no scopes and a token accepted in the URL (15 of 30, the platform's deduction). Hydrogen is on the free tier, where Google's terms say content is used to improve products and may be read by humans; paid-tier content isn't (10 of 20, the platform's reading; Carbon, paid tier only, got 15). Abuse retention has no number and new paid projects store requests by default since 26 October; Google's prompt-injection figure (2.3 times more resilient on Gray Swan's benchmark) is its own, and the model card says jailbreak resistance is still being improved (5 of 15). Request logs for billed projects (15). security.txt and a reward programme, no certification naming the API (5 of 20). 15 + 10 + 5 + 15 + 5 = 50.

SambaCloud 61

Model reading. Bearer keys from the console, up to 25 per user and shown once. No scopes, project limits or rotation guidance were found, and the key travels in a header, never in the URL (18 of 30). The terms let SambaNova access, store and process Customer Content solely to supply the service and for no other purposes, which rules out training without naming it (18 of 20). The DPA's Annex I, read on 1 November, keeps prompts, inputs and completions no more than 30 days for security, fraud and abuse monitoring. No zero-retention option was found in the pages read, and the product page says SambaCloud never sees or collects prompts, against that retention and terms that grant a right to store content and to use query logs (10 of 15, between deepseek-api's 5 and siliconflow's 6 with no period stated and the 15 groq, mistral-api and xai-api take for 30 days with a zero-retention route). The console has a Usage page. No request logs or audit log were found in the docs (5 of 15). The trust centre states SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001. No security.txt, disclosure policy or bug bounty was found, and the SDK's SECURITY.md sends service reports to a general address (10 of 20).

Gemini 4 Hydrogen 85

Model reading for gemini-4-hydrogen on the Gemini API. Platform facts are the Gemini API listing's (gemini-api, re-read 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Released on 12 November 2026, recorded in Google Cloud's release notes; the Gemini API changelog, last updated 30 October, has no entry for it yet (30). Google Cloud states a minimum of 45 days' notice before Hydrogen is retired, short and stated for Cloud only; the Gemini API's deprecations give earliest dates with no stated minimum (6 of 12). Shutdowns in the last 90 days kept to their table (4 of 8). Dated changelog (15). SDK replies not sampled (5 of 10). Current SDKs; the developer guide names the minimum google-genai, @google/genai, Go and Java versions (15). Runtimes stated (10). 30 + 6 + 4 + 15 + 5 + 15 + 10 = 85.

SambaCloud 77

Model reading. The OpenAPI document and both SDKs (Python 1.14.0, TypeScript 1.11.0) were updated on 27 October 2026, adding MiniMax-M3.1-Flash, which is on the pricing page on 1 November (30). Production models get a notice of at least two to three weeks. The recorded removals to June had 14 days or less, and MiniMax-M2.7's removal from SambaCloud on 1 October was announced on 1 September (30 days), per the 27 October read of the deprecations page (5 of 12). One removal in the window from 3 August (MiniMax-M2.7) after 13 model ids left between 9 March and 9 June 2026 (4 of 8). The SambaCloud release notes stopped at 7 July 2026 on 8 October and couldn't be re-read. The community forum had staff replies, per the 8 October check (10 of 15). The Python SDK repository holds release pull requests only, so replies could not be judged (5 of 10). Python 1.14.0 and TypeScript 1.11.0, both 27 October 2026 (15). CI, release-please, a lock file and gitleaks scanning (8 of 10). 30+5+4+10+5+15+8 = 77.