# GroqCloud vs SiliconFlow

> GroqCloud scores 75.6 (BB) to SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-siliconflow
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-siliconflow.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-siliconflow.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-siliconflow.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 SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do llm inference.

- GroqCloud: grade BB, 75.6/100, rank #44 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/groq.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/groq.json
- SiliconFlow: grade D, 46.7/100, rank #848 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/siliconflow.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/siliconflow.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 136 models comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inference/index.md

## 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 33
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 60
- Security & auth, 77 against 39
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 72 against 47
- Transparency & trust, 85 against 51

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Free to start without a card

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

### SiliconFlow (D)

Good for: Agents that want recent open-weight chat models, plus image, video and speech, behind one OpenAI-style key at low per-token prices, and can live without a status page or SLA.

Watch for: No status page, incident history or SLA was found, and the terms disclaim any uptime or availability commitment


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | GroqCloud | SiliconFlow | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 100 | 33 | GroqCloud +67 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 65 | SiliconFlow +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 60 | GroqCloud +20 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 77 | 39 | GroqCloud +38 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 35 | GroqCloud +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 47 | GroqCloud +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 51 | GroqCloud +34 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **75.6 · BB** | **46.7 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | GroqCloud | SiliconFlow |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Groq | SiliconFlow Labs Pte. Ltd. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.groq.com/openai/v1` | `https://api.siliconflow.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Proprietary service under the SiliconFlow Terms of Use |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-22 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-11-12 | no date given |
| 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 | yes | 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 | 619 stars | none |
| 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.

**SiliconFlow.** Per-token prices for every listed model are public, and one key reaches chat, embeddings, reranking, image, video and speech through OpenAI-style and Anthropic-style routes. No status page, SLA, security page or official SDK was found, release notes stop at 11 June 2026, and several model removals are dated the same day as their notice.

## 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

### SiliconFlow

1. Set the OpenAI client's base URL to `https://api.siliconflow.com/v1`, or the Anthropic client's to `https://api.siliconflow.com/`, and send the key as a Bearer token
2. Take model ids from the model pages or `GET /v1/models`, not from the OpenAPI enum or the function calling guide, which list removed models
3. Check the `model` field of each response. On 11 June 2026 traffic for GLM-5 and Kimi-K2.5 was routed to successor models
4. Use `response_format` of `json_object` only where the model page says JSON Mode is supported, and keep `max_tokens` about 10,000 below the context length
5. Set the Claude Code environment variables by hand. The automated route pipes a script from an Amazon S3 bucket into bash

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, GroqCloud or SiliconFlow?

GroqCloud scores 75.6 (BB) on agent readiness against SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

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

Both need an API key.

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

Yes. GroqCloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.groq.com/openai/v1 and SiliconFlow at https://api.siliconflow.com/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with GroqCloud or SiliconFlow

- [Claude API vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-groq.md)
- [Claude API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Antseed vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-groq.md)
- [Antseed vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-groq.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-groq.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-groq.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-groq.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [DeepInfra vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-groq.md)
- [DeepInfra vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-groq.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-groq.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [GroqCloud vs Mistral AI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-mistral-api.md)
- [GroqCloud vs Novita AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-novita-ai.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)
- [GroqCloud vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Mistral AI API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Novita AI vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/novita-ai-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [OpenAI API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [OpenRouter vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Prism Inference vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prism-inference-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [SambaCloud vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sambanova-vs-siliconflow.md)