# GPUsMarket vs Vast.ai

> Vast.ai scores 56.4 (C) 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-vast-ai
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpusmarket-vs-vast-ai.md (~5,300 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

Vast.ai scores 56.4 (C) on agent readiness against GPUsMarket's 39.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. GPUsMarket leads on payments & pricing. Both do gpu compute.

- GPUsMarket: grade E, 39.6/100, rank #1318 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gpusmarket.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gpusmarket.json
- Vast.ai: grade C, 56.4/100, rank #824 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vast-ai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vast-ai.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

### Vast.ai (C)

Good for: Cost-sensitive training, batch work and self-managed inference where the agent can search listings, set a price cap and tolerate host variance or interruption.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 50 against 33
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 52
- Agent ergonomics, 57 against 50
- Security & auth, 70 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 81 against 69
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 50

Watch for: No SLA. The terms say availability is not guaranteed and the service can change without notice


## Why the edge

### Security & auth: Vast.ai +40

- 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.
- Vast.ai (70): Keys can be scoped to 11 permission categories and narrowed by constraints to resource IDs, are shown once, and can be reset or deleted with immediate effect (30). The rate-limit page, re-read on 2 November, names an `api_key` query parameter as part of a caller's identity while the authentication page shows only the Bearer header. We took 5 of the checklist's 10 points for a key that can travel in a URL, a judgement call because the option is acknowledged but not taught (25 of 30). Read-only categories and per-instance constraints exist. The CLI confirms a destroy, and Vast.ai's auth.md asks agents to confirm paid or destructive actions, but nothing on the server enforces approval and default keys have full access (15 of 20). The service runs the customer's own containers and returns their logs (10). `vastai show audit-logs` returns account action history. Its retention and fields were not reviewed (10 of 15). A vulnerability disclosure policy dated 23 July 2025, re-read on 2 November, has safe harbour, triage within 5 business days and security@vast.ai. Its bounty is discretionary, which this checklist doesn't count. The compliance page states SOC 2 Type 2 and makes a SOC 3 report available on request. There is no security.txt (404 on 2 November) and no advisories for `vastai` in OSV, and the security FAQ says individual hosts may have less formal security. A reporting route and SOC 2 with no counted bounty take 10, as Sinch's messaging listing (10 of 20). 25 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 70.

### Schema & documentation: Vast.ai +26

- 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.
- Vast.ai (78): Public OpenAPI 3.1 file with 66 paths and 89 operations, re-read on 2 November, plus the YAML source in the CLI repository (25). llms.txt on both vast.ai and docs.vast.ai, with every docs page served as Markdown (10). Operation descriptions give the matching CLI command and rules such as template precedence, and the SKILL.md files list quirks and common errors, though the API introduction steers most users to the CLI (15 of 20). Request bodies are typed, with 37 enums and required fields marked. Search filters are operator objects and several routes are not REST-shaped, such as PUT /asks/{id}/ to create an instance (10 of 15). Examples on most operations and 400, 401 and 429 responses on most, but the docs say the error body varies by endpoint (11 of 15). Routes are versioned v0 and v1 and the CLI has tagged releases. No API changelog was found in the docs index (7 of 15). 25 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 11 + 7 = 78.

### Reliability: Vast.ai +17

- 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.
- Vast.ai (50): Graded as a hosted service. status.vast.ai is Vast.ai's own page with three components (vast, console, serverless) and 30-day bars built from roughly hourly checks, with no incident write-ups (20). The page draws its bars by script from check-log files on the same host. The 8 October count came from those files, the page's own data, which this run doesn't read (as the Docusign and SeaTable listings read their status pages' data feeds), so it's struck, and the window from 4 August to 2 November is unread (5). The page covers Vast.ai's control plane and not the independent hosts' machines. Rate limits are described as a minimum interval per endpoint and identity, re-read on 2 November, but thresholds are unpublished apart from an `x-rateLimit` value on 2 of 89 operations in the OpenAPI file (5 of 15). 429 is documented with backoff advice and the CLI retries it, but the docs say the API sets no `Retry-After` header, and there is no idempotency key for instance creation (10 of 15). No SLA found, and the terms say availability is not guaranteed (0). Instances, serverless and the REST API carry no beta label (10). 20 + 5 + 5 + 10 + 0 + 10 = 50.

### Transparency & trust: Vast.ai +14

- 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.
- Vast.ai (64): A closed service with an MIT CLI and SDK. The Terms of Use Agreement of 1 September 2026, re-read on 2 November, prohibits scripts and automated access to the services without a separate written agreement, which conflicts with the public API and agent tooling (17 of 30). The compliance page says data is destroyed when an instance is deleted, and the DPA allows return or deletion on written notice within 30 days of termination. The privacy policy of 18 June 2025 is written for website users, gives no retention periods, allows targeted advertising and contains an unfilled `[INSERT HYPERLINK]` placeholder (15 of 30). No deprecation policy was found, and the terms allow changes or discontinuation without notice. v0 and v1 routes coexist (3 of 20). The DPA names five sub-processors without locations and gives new ones only on request. Host location is shown per listing and can be filtered (10 of 20). 17 + 15 + 3 + 10 = 45.

### Maintenance & community: Vast.ai +12

- 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.
- Vast.ai (81): `vastai` v1.10.0 was tagged on 30 October 2026 by the repository's publish workflow (30). Thirteen tagged releases between 4 August and 2 November 2026, from v1.5.3 (10 August) to v1.10.0 (30 October) (20). Per the 8 October check, not re-read on 2 November (GitHub's API refuses this session), the repository had 54 open issues and pull requests, 22 of the 30 most recently opened without comments. Vast.ai lists 24/7 chat support and Discord, which we did not test (10 of 25). The CLI and Python SDK are current and ship together. The Claude Code, Codex and Cursor plugins were last changed in June 2026 (15). Three CI workflows cover the installer, publishing and SDK tests. An open issue of 6 September 2026 reports hard-pinned dependencies, and we did not check whether CI passes (6 of 10). 30 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 6 = 81.

### 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.
- Vast.ai (20): No x402, MPP or L402 found (0). Live per-GPU rates are public without a login at vast.ai/pricing, and billing units (per second for GPU and storage, per byte for bandwidth) are documented. Rates are set per listing by hosts, so there is no fixed list (20). No free tier or trial found. Credit is prepaid with a $5 minimum deposit (0). Signup is a browser flow with email verification. Further keys can be created through the API once an account and key exist (0). 0 + 20 + 0 + 0 = 20.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | GPUsMarket | Vast.ai | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 33 | 50 | Vast.ai +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 52 | 78 | Vast.ai +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 50 | 57 | Vast.ai +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 30 | 70 | Vast.ai +40 |
| 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 | 81 | Vast.ai +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 64 | Vast.ai +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **39.6 · E** | **56.4 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | GPUsMarket | Vast.ai |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Tyga.Cloud Ltd | Vast.ai Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://gpusmarket.com/api/v1` | `https://console.vast.ai/api/v0` |
| Transports | stdio, SSE (legacy) | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| 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 Vast.ai's Terms of Use Agreement. The `vastai` CLI and Python SDK on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 32 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.jyswee/gpusmarket` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-10-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-01 | 2026-09-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-03-01 | 2025-06-18 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| 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 | 223 stars, 33k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |

## How the scores have moved

### GPUsMarket

No score change since it was listed.

### Vast.ai

- -6.3 on 2 November 2026 (B to C): correction, negative event
- +0.1 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.

**Vast.ai.** API keys can be limited by permission category and by resource ID, the REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 file, and the CLI ships about weekly with a skill file and editor plugins for coding agents. Machines belong to independent hosts, prices move with the market, rate-limit thresholds are unpublished, and there is no SLA or free tier.

## 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

### Vast.ai

1. Create a scoped key with `vastai create api-key --permissions` for the agent. A default key has full account access, billing and key management included
2. Pass `--raw` on every CLI command for JSON output, and `-y` on `vastai destroy instance`, which otherwise waits for a confirmation prompt
3. Register an SSH key with `vastai create ssh-key` before creating an instance, or the host is unreachable
4. Destroy instances when finished. A stopped instance still bills storage, and a zero balance without a saved card leads to deletion
5. Back off on HTTP 429 yourself when calling REST directly. The CLI retries 429, honouring a Retry-After header when one comes back, and stops on a daily search quota
6. Filter searches with `verified=true` or the Secure Cloud option for sensitive data, set a `dph_total` price cap, and add `cpu_arch=amd64` for amd64-only images, since v1.10.0 searches arm64 machines too

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, GPUsMarket or Vast.ai?

Vast.ai scores 56.4 (C) on agent readiness against GPUsMarket's 39.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. GPUsMarket leads on payments & pricing.

### Do GPUsMarket and Vast.ai need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call GPUsMarket and Vast.ai without installing anything?

Yes. GPUsMarket has a hosted endpoint at https://gpusmarket.com/api/v1 and Vast.ai at https://console.vast.ai/api/v0.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with GPUsMarket or Vast.ai

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