# GPUsMarket vs Thunder Compute

> Thunder Compute scores 51.3 (D) to GPUsMarket's 39.6 (E) for gpu compute. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpusmarket-vs-thunder-compute
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpusmarket-vs-thunder-compute.md (~5,350 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Thunder Compute scores 51.3 (D) on agent readiness against GPUsMarket's 39.6 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. GPUsMarket leads on payments & pricing. Both do gpu compute.

- GPUsMarket: grade E, 39.6/100, rank #1337 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gpusmarket.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gpusmarket.json
- Thunder Compute: grade D, 51.3/100, rank #1032 of 1510. 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 231 gpu compute comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpu-compute/index.md

## Which one, for what

### GPUsMarket (E)

Good for: Cheap, short GPU rentals for open models behind an Ollama or OpenAI endpoint, where data sensitivity is low.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Peer rentals send prompts and outputs through individuals' hardware, with only the terms as protection

### Thunder Compute (D)

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.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 65 against 33
- Schema & documentation, 70 against 52
- Security & auth, 51 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 69
- Transparency & trust, 66 against 50

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


## Why the edge

### Reliability: Thunder Compute +32

- GPUsMarket (33): Read with the hosted lines. No status page found; listing health is shown per listing only (0). No incident history to read (5). Rate limits published, 60 requests a minute per rental and 10 sign-ups an hour per IP (15). 429 is documented, but no Retry-After, backoff or idempotency guidance (3). The terms give no availability guarantee and put host outages on hosts (0). No beta label on the API (10). 0+5+15+3+0+10 = 33.
- Thunder Compute (65): Graded on the hosted lines for the REST API and the hosted MCP server. Thunder Compute's terms bar robots, scrapers and data-gathering tools on the Services, so its site, status page and API host weren't requested on 4 November and the readings below are per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November. Status page on incident.io at status.thundercompute.com with Website, API and Instances components and monthly history (20). No incidents listed for July to 9 October 2026. The rest of the window is unread and not credited, so the line keeps its recorded award (30). No rate limits with numbers were found in the docs or the OpenAPI document (0). No 429 or retry guidance in the docs. The CLI source reads a `Retry-After` header on errors, adding a duplicate SSH key is a no-op and port updates are atomic, but instance creation has no idempotency key (5 of 15, a partial value kept and flagged). No SLA found, and the terms say availability is not guaranteed (0). The API and MCP server carry no beta label (10). 20+30+0+5+0+10 = 65.

### Security & auth: Thunder Compute +21

- GPUsMarket (30): Account keys are all-powerful within the account, with no scopes, expiry or rotation documented, but each rental gets its own proxy token (15). The per-rental token limits inference access to one rental; no read-only key or confirmation for destructive calls (6). Peer rentals send prompts and outputs through individuals' machines, protected only by the terms, with no prompt-injection or untrusted-host guidance (2). Per-rental usage stats of requests, tokens and cost (5). No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification; a DPO address for breaches. The CLI and host packages are obfuscated, so they can't be audited (2). 15+6+2+5+2 = 30.
- Thunder Compute (51): The MCP server uses OAuth 2.0 with discovery, refresh tokens and ten scopes that separate read from write for instances, snapshots and sandboxes. The REST API uses named API tokens that are created and revoked one at a time, with no scopes found. No secret travels in a URL (25 of 30). Read scopes exist, and the CLI requires `--yes` to delete without a prompt. No confirmation step for `delete_instance` or `delete_snapshot` was found in the MCP docs, and both are described as irreversible (8 of 20). Responses are infrastructure metadata, except `run_command` output and sandbox logs, with no guidance found on untrusted output (8 of 15). `GET /tokens` returns creation and last-used times and sandbox logs are listed by API. No audit log was found (4 of 15). No security.txt, disclosure policy or bug bounty was found. `llms.txt` states SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliance with no report or trust page linked, and the DPA promises an audit summary on written request and incident notice within 72 hours (6 of 20). The site readings are per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November. 25+8+8+4+6 = 51.

### Schema & documentation: Thunder Compute +18

- GPUsMarket (52): API and MCP reading. No OpenAPI or other machine-readable contract was found, and the MCP tool schemas couldn't be read because the published package is obfuscated; the repository's history says 2.4.7 added output schemas to all 32 tools, which is the vendor's claim (8). llms.txt as a complete API reference (10). llms.txt says when to use peer or cloud rentals, the proxy or the relay, and which workload each listing type serves (12). Parameters are listed by name without types, enums or required markers, apart from instance and workload types (6). curl examples for each flow, an error code list and a sample deploy response (11). npm versions, but no public changelog (5). 8+10+12+6+11+5 = 52.
- Thunder Compute (70): Public OpenAPI 3.1 document at api.thundercompute.com:8443/openapi.json with 41 operations and 72 schemas (25). `llms.txt`, `llms-full.txt` and a Markdown copy of every docs page (10). 28 of 41 operations have a description. Instance operations state side effects such as the private key being returned once, while most sandbox operations have a summary only (12 of 20). Required fields are marked, but the document has six enums, `gpu_type` and `template` are free strings and the instance list is a map keyed by ID (8 of 15). 12 examples and one error schema with `code`, `error` and `message`. Most operations document 400, 401 and 500, and none documents 429 (9 of 15). `/v1` and `/v2` paths, with legacy endpoints and the `mode` field marked as retained or deprecated. No API changelog was found. The CLI has a dated one (6 of 15). No published copy of the MCP tool definitions was found, so they were not read. All of this is per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November. 25+10+12+8+9+6 = 70.

### Transparency & trust: Thunder Compute +16

- GPUsMarket (50): Closed, under Tyga.Cloud licences that are clear on use, but the docs call gpusmarket-host MIT open source while the package says otherwise (10). The privacy policy gives retention periods and names Stripe and MongoDB, while renter data on peer hosts falls outside its controls, which the terms disclaim (15). The terms promise 30 days' notice of material changes, with no deprecation policy or dated notices found (5). Processors partly named, with transfers under SCCs, and no host locations shown in the docs read (6). 10+15+5+6 = 36.
- Thunder Compute (66): Closed service under Terms and Conditions dated 28 September 2026 and Delaware law. The CLI is MIT. The OpenAPI document names Apache 2.0 and a placeholder terms address (15 of 30). The privacy policy of 28 September 2026 says instance data is not used to train AI models, the terms say instance data may be deleted 60 days after the account was last active, and a DPA is published. The sub-processor list names Firebase for sign-in while the MCP docs name Stytch, and the FAQ says instances are EC2 while the list names Azure (18 of 30). No deprecation policy. The terms allow changes without notice, and the billing docs say rates can change without notice. Legacy endpoints are marked as retained for compatibility (6 of 20). Five sub-processors with locations are listed and the DPA sets 10 business days' notice of changes. The list is dated 27 August 2025 and omits Stytch and Sentry, which the MCP docs and the CLI source name (12 of 20). The site readings are per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November. 15+18+6+12 = 51.

### Payments & pricing: GPUsMarket +10

- GPUsMarket (30): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Hourly prices for every listing and GPU type are public through the unauthenticated search and types endpoints, with a $0.50 minimum (20). No free tier; a card hold is placed on every rental (0). Sign-up and key issue are one API call with no browser, but renting needs a saved, verified card, which the docs don't show being added without a person (10). 0+20+0+10 = 30.
- Thunder Compute (20): No x402, MPP or L402 in the docs, the OpenAPI document or the pricing page (0). Per-GPU-hour, per-vCPU-hour and storage prices are public on the pricing page (20). No general free tier or trial. A $20 credit is limited to students with a US university email, and the MCP quickstart asks for a payment method before connecting (0). Signup and the first OAuth consent happen in a browser. `create_token` issues API tokens only after that sign-in (0). Per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November. 0+20+0+0 = 20.

### Maintenance & community: Thunder Compute +10

- GPUsMarket (69): gpusmarket 2.5.1 on 16 October 2026, 21 days before this check (30). Releases 2.4.18 to 2.5.1 between 17 August and 16 October, and gpusmarket-host 1.5.3 and 1.6.0 (20). Support by chat widget; the repository, which holds only a README, server.json and a licence, has no open issues and one star (5). Published in the official MCP registry under the verified io.github.jyswee namespace, though the newest registry version, 2.4.16, trails npm (12). No dependencies, but an obfuscated build and no public CI (2). 30+20+5+12+2 = 69.
- Thunder Compute (79): The newest CLI release is v2.2.0 of 27 October 2026, which adds `tnr report` and SSH and interface fixes (30). Three CLI releases in the 90 days from 6 August, v2.0.72 (15 September), v2.1.0 (16 September) and v2.2.0, each changing code (20). A dated CLI changelog, a support address and a Discord server the docs say the founders answer. No API changelog. GitHub issues weren't re-read (github.com refused), so 10 of 15 per the 9 October check. Listed in the official MCP registry as `io.github.Thunder-Compute/thunder-compute` per the 9 October check, and the CLI and the `thunder-sandbox` SDK are current (13 of 15). The CLI repository has tests, a lint configuration and release checksum verification, and still no CI workflow (`.github` holds only `copilot-instructions.md`) (6 of 10). 30+20+10+13+6 = 79.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | GPUsMarket | Thunder Compute | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 33 | 65 | Thunder Compute +32 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 52 | 70 | Thunder Compute +18 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 50 | 48 | GPUsMarket +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 30 | 51 | Thunder Compute +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 20 | GPUsMarket +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 79 | Thunder Compute +10 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 66 | Thunder Compute +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **39.6 · E** | **51.3 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | GPUsMarket | Thunder Compute |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Tyga.Cloud Ltd | Thunder Compute |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://gpusmarket.com/api/v1` | `https://api.thundercompute.com:8443/v1` |
| Transports | stdio, SSE (legacy) | 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. The gpusmarket CLI and gpusmarket-host packages ship under Tyga.Cloud Ltd licences that allow use only with the platform, as obfuscated JavaScript | Proprietary service under Thunder Compute's Terms and Conditions. The `tnr` CLI on GitHub is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 32 | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.jyswee/gpusmarket` | `io.github.Thunder-Compute/thunder-compute` |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-10-27 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-01 | 2026-09-28 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-03-01 | 2026-09-28 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 1 stars, 79 npm/wk | 34 stars |

## How the scores have moved

### GPUsMarket

No score change since it was listed.

### Thunder Compute

- -5.0 on 4 November 2026 (C to D): negative event
- +0.2 on 27 October 2026: checklist

## Verdicts

**GPUsMarket.** An agent can sign up with one API call, search priced GPUs without a key, rent a peer or cloud GPU as an Ollama or OpenAI-compatible endpoint and stop it, billed per second. Prompts on peer rentals pass through individuals' machines, the CLI is obfuscated, and there is no status page, security policy or free tier.

**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. No rate limits, SLA or API changelog were found, instance creation has no idempotency key, and the CLI sends error reports to Sentry by default with no documented opt-out.

## Before you call either

### GPUsMarket

1. Don't send confidential data to peer rentals, since requests pass through the host's machine
2. Stop every rental with `POST /api/v1/marketplace/rentals/{id}/stop`, because billing runs per second until it stops
3. Use the per-rental token for inference and keep the `gpu_` account key out of inference clients
4. Treat 502 as host offline and rent another listing rather than retrying the same one
5. Ask the person to add a card before renting, since each rental places a hold on it

### 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, and upgrade the CLI to v2.1.0 or later, which stops copying that credential onto instances.

## Questions

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

Thunder Compute scores 51.3 (D) on agent readiness against GPUsMarket's 39.6 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. GPUsMarket leads on payments & pricing.

### Do GPUsMarket and Thunder Compute need an API key?

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

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

Yes. GPUsMarket has a hosted endpoint at https://gpusmarket.com/api/v1 and Thunder Compute at https://api.thundercompute.com:8443/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with GPUsMarket or Thunder Compute

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

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp