# GroqCloud vs Vercel AI Gateway

> GroqCloud scores 74.5 (BB) to Vercel AI Gateway's 66.7 (B) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

GroqCloud scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Vercel AI Gateway's 66.7 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Vercel AI Gateway leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. Both do llm inference.

- GroqCloud: grade BB, 74.5/100, rank #70 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/groq.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/groq.json
- Vercel AI Gateway: grade B, 66.7/100, rank #302 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vercel-ai-gateway.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vercel-ai-gateway.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 326 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, 90 against 74
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 85 against 70

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Free to start without a card
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5
- No incidents deducted, where Vercel AI Gateway loses 3 points for them

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

### Vercel AI Gateway (B)

Good for: Teams that want one key, one bill, budgets and failover in front of many model providers, especially on Vercel with OIDC.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 64
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 72

Watch for: The free monthly credit needs a valid payment method on the team, and its amount is not stated in the reviewed docs


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | GroqCloud | Vercel AI Gateway | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 74 | GroqCloud +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 74 | Vercel AI Gateway +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 83 | Vercel AI Gateway +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 82 | 79 | GroqCloud +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 20 | GroqCloud +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 70 | GroqCloud +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **74.5 · BB** | **66.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | GroqCloud | Vercel AI Gateway |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model router |
| Vendor | Groq | Vercel Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.groq.com/openai/v1` | `https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Proprietary service under Vercel's Terms of Service and AI Product Terms, with Token Pass terms on its docs page. Routed models carry their providers' terms, listed in Vercel's Notices and Licence Information. The `@ai-sdk/gateway` provider is Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-21 | 2026-10-17 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-22 | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-11-12 | 2026-06-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| 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 | yes |
| Popularity | 619 stars | 29.6M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (8) | 3/5 (4) |

## 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.

**Vercel AI Gateway.** Token prices pass through with no markup, prompts are not stored by the gateway, and budgets, provider failover and per-request logs are built in. The free monthly credit needs a card on file, rate limits are not published as numbers, no SLA covers the API, and the contractual promise not to train on content applies to Enterprise subscriptions only.

## Before you call either

### GroqCloud

1. Call `/models` at start-up. Four model ids stopped working between July and September
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; server errors aren't billed

### Vercel AI Gateway

1. Read `GET https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/models` without a key to pick a model ID and check its price, context, ZDR and no-training flags before calling
2. Set `zeroDataRetention` or `disallowPromptTraining` to true in `providerOptions.gateway` on sensitive requests. Default routing ignores provider retention and training policies
3. Treat a 429 as retryable and honour `retry-after` when present. A 402 with `quota_for_entity_exceeded` is a spent budget, so do not retry it
4. On a Token Pass key, a 403 with `no_providers_available` means spent credit or a model outside the pass. Retry with a standard AI Gateway key, which bills credits
5. Set `inferenceRegion` when data residency matters. The default `global` may run inference outside the user's jurisdiction

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, GroqCloud or Vercel AI Gateway?

GroqCloud scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Vercel AI Gateway's 66.7 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Vercel AI Gateway leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community.

### Do GroqCloud and Vercel AI Gateway need an API key?

GroqCloud needs an API key. Vercel AI Gateway takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call GroqCloud and Vercel AI Gateway without installing anything?

Yes. GroqCloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.groq.com/openai/v1 and Vercel AI Gateway at https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1.


## For agents

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

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