Jais 3 vs SambaCloud

Jais 3

Jais 3 runs on the owner's hardware through OpenAI-compatible servers in vLLM and SGLang, with tool calls, three reasoning levels and a 512K context, from a 2.2 GB 0.9B model to a 758 GB 375B one. The weights download without sign-up under Apache-2.0, but every launch command trusts remote code, and no technical report or security contact is published.

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.

Jais 3

1. Start vLLM or SGLang with --reasoning-parser k2_horizon, and add --tool-call-parser k2_horizon (vLLM also --enable-auto-tool-choice) for tools, or tool calls come back as raw text
2. Pass reasoning_effort (high, medium or low) and tool_call_format inside chat_template_kwargs. Other values return a template error
3. Send each earlier assistant turn back with reasoning_content as a string, even an empty one. A missing or null thinking field makes the template raise an error
4. Send your own system message, or set default_system_prompt to an empty string. Without one the template inserts an identity prompt naming IFM, Inception42 and Cerebras
5. Budget at least 32,768 output tokens at high effort, which the cards recommend for every request

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