# Google Veo vs Runway API

> Runway API has a score of 61.1 (C) against Google Veo's 60.8 (C). Both do video generate. The largest gap is reliability, 30 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-veo-vs-runway
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-veo-vs-runway.md (~1,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-veo-vs-runway.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-veo-vs-runway.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: 2026-10-04

Runway API has a score of 61.1 (C) against Google Veo's 60.8 (C). Both do video generate. The largest gap is reliability, 30 points.

- Google Veo: grade C, 60.8/100, rank #240 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-veo.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-veo.json
- Runway API: grade C, 61.1/100, rank #232 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/runway.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/runway.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Google Veo for security & auth (+27), maintenance & community (+15), transparency & trust (+23).

Pick Runway API for reliability (+30), schema & documentation (+22), agent ergonomics (+11).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Google Veo | Runway API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 45 | 75 | Runway API +30 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 71 | 93 | Runway API +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 75 | Runway API +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 78 | 51 | Google Veo +27 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 62 | Google Veo +15 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 57 | Google Veo +23 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **60.8 · C** | **61.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Google Veo | Runway API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Google | Runway |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta` | `https://api.dev.runwayml.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 4k stars | 20 stars, 56k npm/wk, 67k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 4/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Google Veo.** Audio on every Veo 3.1 clip, up to 4K on Veo 3.1 and Fast. All three Veo 3.1 previews shut down on the Gemini API on 2026-10-22.

**Runway API.** OpenAPI 3.1, llms.txt and Markdown copies of every docs page. Gen-3 Alpha Turbo and Gen-4 Aleph were removed on 2026-07-30 with no prior notice in the changelog.

## Before you call either

### Google Veo

1. Move off `veo-3.1-*-preview` before 2026-10-22. Use `gemini-omni-1.1-flash` on the Gemini API or the GA Veo IDs on Vertex AI
2. Call `predictLongRunning`, then poll the operation name about every 10 seconds until `done` is true. Jobs take 11 seconds to 6 minutes
3. Download the video within 2 days. The server deletes it after that
4. Set `durationSeconds` to 8 for 1080p, 4K or reference images. Shorter clips aren't supported there
5. In the EU, UK, Switzerland and MENA image-to-video only accepts `personGeneration` set to `allow_adult`

### Runway API

1. Send `X-Runway-Version: 2024-11-06` on every request or it fails
2. Use the SDK's wait-for-output helper or poll GET /v1/tasks/{id} until SUCCEEDED or FAILED
3. Don't retry a SAFETY.* failure unchanged. It's moderation, not an outage
4. Take model IDs from the models page, not memory. Two were removed without notice on 2026-07-30
5. Copy outputs to your own storage. URLs expire within 24 to 48 hours

## Other comparisons with Google Veo or Runway API

- [Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) vs Google Veo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alibaba-wan-vs-google-veo.md)
- [Alibaba Wan (Model Studio) vs Runway API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alibaba-wan-vs-runway.md)
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- [Google Veo vs Vidu API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-veo-vs-vidu.md)
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- [MiniMax Video API vs Runway API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/minimax-video-vs-runway.md)
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- [PixVerse API vs Runway API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pixverse-vs-runway.md)
- [Runway API vs Vidu API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/runway-vs-vidu.md)