# GroqCloud vs SambaCloud

> GroqCloud scores 75.6 (BB) on agent readiness against SambaCloud's 66.4 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SambaCloud leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. Both do llm inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-sambanova
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-sambanova.md (~2,200 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-sambanova.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-sambanova.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: 2026-10-09

GroqCloud scores 75.6 (BB) on agent readiness against SambaCloud's 66.4 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SambaCloud leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. Both do llm inference.

- GroqCloud: grade BB, 75.6/100, rank #43 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/groq.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/groq.json
- SambaCloud: grade B, 66.4/100, rank #269 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sambanova.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sambanova.json

## Which one, for what

### GroqCloud (BB)

Good for: Many small, latency-sensitive calls on open-weight models, routing, extraction and classification, and agents that need to start free.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 100 against 85
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 67
- Security & auth, 77 against 58
- Transparency & trust, 85 against 63

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: Four model shutdown dates between 2026-07-17 and 2026-09-21, with no stated minimum notice

### 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:
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 64
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 72

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 | GroqCloud | SambaCloud | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 100 | 85 | GroqCloud +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 81 | SambaCloud +17 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 67 | GroqCloud +13 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 77 | 58 | GroqCloud +19 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 77 | SambaCloud +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 63 | GroqCloud +22 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **75.6 · BB** | **66.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | GroqCloud | SambaCloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Groq | SambaNova Systems, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.groq.com/openai/v1` | `https://api.sambanova.ai/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | 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 | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-17 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-22 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-11-12 | 2023-05-27 |
| 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 | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 619 stars | 2 stars, 76 npm/wk, 6.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (8) | none |

## Verdicts

**GroqCloud.** Free plan with no card, at 30 requests a minute and 1,000 a day on gpt-oss. Four model shutdown dates between 2026-07-17 and 2026-09-21, with no stated minimum notice.

**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

### GroqCloud

1. Call `/models` at start-up. Four model ids stopped working this quarter
2. Read `retry-after` on a 429 and the `x-ratelimit-remaining-tokens` header before the next call
3. Free plan allows 8,000 tokens a minute on gpt-oss, so keep prompts small or batch them
4. Don't build on Qwen 3.8 27B. It's a preview and previews can go at short notice
5. Treat a 498 as Flex capacity and retry later; 5xx responses aren't billed

### 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, GroqCloud or SambaCloud?

GroqCloud scores 75.6 (BB) on agent readiness against SambaCloud's 66.4 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SambaCloud leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community.

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

Both need an API key.

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

Yes. GroqCloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.groq.com/openai/v1 and SambaCloud at https://api.sambanova.ai/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with GroqCloud or SambaCloud

- [Claude API vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-groq.md)
- [Claude API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Antseed vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-groq.md)
- [Antseed vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-sambanova.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-groq.md)
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- [DeepInfra vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-groq.md)
- [DeepInfra vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-sambanova.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-groq.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-groq.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [GroqCloud vs Mistral AI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-mistral-api.md)
- [GroqCloud vs OpenAI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-openai-api.md)
- [GroqCloud vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-openrouter.md)
- [GroqCloud vs Prism Inference](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-prism-inference.md)
- [Mistral AI API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [OpenAI API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [OpenRouter vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Prism Inference vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prism-inference-vs-sambanova.md)