# Jais 3 vs xAI API (Grok) (slim)

> xAI scores 71.7 (BB) to Jais 3's 52.1 (D) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jais-3-vs-xai-api.md (~6,900 tokens) · this version ~3,630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jais-3-vs-xai-api.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jais-3-vs-xai-api
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

xAI API (Grok) scores 71.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Jais 3's 52.1 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Jais 3 leads on payments & pricing. Both do llm inference.

- Jais 3: D 52.1, rank #992 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jais-3.min.md
- xAI API (Grok): BB 71.7, rank #151 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/xai-api.min.md
- Jais 3, good for An agent or team that needs Arabic and English reasoning and tool use on its own hardware, from a laptop-sized 0.9B to a cluster-sized 375B, under Apache-2.0. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 60 against 20. Also No key needed to call it; Free to start without a card.
- xAI API (Grok), good for Agents that want a capable model at a low per-token price with built-in web and X search, remote MCP and voice, and teams that need self-serve ZDR or US-only processing. Ahead on Reliability, 55 against 48; Schema & documentation, 88 against 54; Agent ergonomics, 90 against 65; Security & auth, 97 against 31; Maintenance & community, 77 against 62; Transparency & trust, 63 against 55. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.

| Category | Jais 3 | xAI API (Grok) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 48 | 55 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 54 | 88 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 65 | 90 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 31 | 97 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 62 | 77 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 55 | 63 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Jais 3 | xAI API (Grok) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Institute of Foundation Models (MBZUAI) and Inception42 | SpaceXSI (xAI) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.x.ai/v1` |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| Licence | Apache-2.0, declared in the metadata of every model card read. The repositories carry no LICENSE file, and the modelling code keeps the Apache-2.0 header of the Qwen3-MoE code it was generated from | Proprietary service under xAI's enterprise terms of service. The Python SDK is Apache-2.0 |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-15 | 2026-11-02 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-10-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-10-27 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | none | 597 stars, 912k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Security & auth, xAI API (Grok) +66: Jais 3 31 (Read as software the owner runs. No account or key, ungated downloads, and server authentication is the owner's to add (12 of 30). A model that calls whatever tools the operator wires in. The cards rule high-stakes decisions without human oversight out of scope, but nothing in the model or template enforces approval (6 of 20). The template renders tool results in their own `tool` role, but string results go in as raw text (only non-string content is serialised with `tojson`), no escaping of special-token sequences in caller or tool text was found, and no injection guidance or results are published (4 of 15). No call log of its own. Visibility depends on the serving stack (5 of 15). Every launch command passes `--trust-remote-code`, so `modeling_k2_horizon.py` from the repository runs on the host. We read it and found only torch and transformers imports. No security.txt on ifm.ai (404 on 17 October, not re-read), no security contact on the cards and no safety evaluation found. Since 25 October the cards link a technical report on ifm.ai, which answered a Cloudflare bot check on 4 November, so what it covers is unread (4 of 20). 12 + 6 + 4 + 5 + 4 = 31.); xAI API (Grok) 97 (Model reading. Team API keys with ACLs per endpoint and per model, QPM and TPM caps, expiry, and create, rotate, disable and delete through the Management API, plus documented mTLS. GitHub secret scanning disables leaked keys and emails the owner (30). The security FAQ says SpaceXSI never trains on API inputs or outputs without explicit permission (20). Requests and responses are kept 30 days for abuse auditing, then deleted, and team admins can switch on zero data retention themselves, confirmed by an `x-zero-data-retention` header on every response (15). Console audit log and a Management API audit-events endpoint, plus optional per-key request logging (15). security.txt valid to 2027-06-29 with a HackerOne bug bounty and a separate safety contact for prompt-injection issues. SOC 2 Type 2 is claimed in the security FAQ with the reports behind an NDA in the trust centre, so 17 of 20. Remote MCP doesn't support `require_approval`, which the model checklist doesn't score but reviewers should see. New in October, a `guidelines` array lets the caller make the model decline nsfw, violence or profanity content, which the checklist doesn't score.)
- Payments & pricing, Jais 3 +40: Jais 3 60 (Self-hosted rule. Apache-2.0 weights with nothing to buy and no hosted option from the makers (20). Free to run with no card (20). Downloads are ungated and anonymous, so an agent can fetch the weights with no sign-up (20). No payment protocol (0). 20 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 60.); xAI API (Grok) 20 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-token and per-call prices published without a login on docs.x.ai/developers/pricing (20). No free tier found for the text API, and the quickstart says to load the account with credits (0). Sign-up is in the browser at console.x.ai. The Management API can create keys and top up prepaid credit, but only with a management key made by a person in the console, so no line credit (0).)
- Schema & documentation, xAI API (Grok) +34: Jais 3 54 (Read for a model the owner serves. No specification of its own. The contract is the Jinja chat template, which validates tool JSON Schemas (required fields must exist in properties) and rejects unknown options, plus the OpenAI-compatible servers in vLLM and SGLang with the `k2_horizon` parsers (10 of 25). The cards are Markdown on Hugging Face, and SGLang's docs have an llms.txt, but no llms.txt or Markdown docs from IFM were found and ifm.ai couldn't be read (5 of 10). Each card states intended use, four out-of-scope uses, limitations and per-size serving advice (15 of 20). `reasoning_effort` and `tool_call_format` are enums enforced with errors, and tools take JSON Schema. The 375B card describes `low` as no reasoning and omits `medium`, which the template accepts, and structured output isn't documented (10 of 15). Python examples for a reasoning call and a tool loop, commands for five runtimes, and named template errors, but no error reference for a served model (11 of 15). No changelog or version scheme. Training-stage branches and public commit history (3 of 15). 10 + 5 + 15 + 10 + 11 + 3 = 54.); xAI API (Grok) 88 (OpenAPI 3.1 document at docs.x.ai/openapi.json, 39 paths and 205 schemas on 6 November, covering Responses, Chat Completions, files, images, videos and models. The batch endpoints documented in the REST reference still aren't in it (20 of 25, applied as for gemini-api's missing Interactions API). llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every page, plus a docs MCP server (10). The models page says which model to use for code, chat, images, video and voice, and reference pages list each parameter. Reference not read in full (18 of 20). Structured outputs are guaranteed to match the schema for supported keywords, and tool arguments always conform with `strict` implicitly true (15). Examples in Python, JavaScript and curl on every guide. The debugging page lists status codes with fixes, but the cause cells for 400, 403, 404 and 415 are still empty (13 of 15). Release notes are grouped by month without day dates, and model slugs come as aliases and dated versions (12 of 15).)
- Agent ergonomics, xAI API (Grok) +25: Jais 3 65 (Model reading of the checklist (tool use, structured output, caching, context, throughput, defaults and SDKs, errors). OpenAI-format tools come back as `tool_calls` in three selectable wire formats, with a multi-turn loop example. Forced `tool_choice` and parallel calls aren't documented (15 of 20). JSON mode and schemas only through each runtime's guided decoding, not documented by the makers (5 of 15). Prefix caching is the runtime's, and SGLang's page covers HiCache (7 of 10). 524,288 tokens on five of six models, 131,072 on the 0.9B (14 of 15). Uno adapters claim 2.15 times faster decoding for 0.9B to 32B but need IFM's own engine. SGLang lists n-gram speculative decoding and PD disaggregation. No batch mode of its own (7 of 10). Any OpenAI SDK works against a local server, and the 0.9B to 7B fit one GPU. But the cards ask for high effort and 32,768 output tokens on every request, the template inserts an identity system prompt when none is sent, and earlier assistant turns must carry a string thinking field (8 of 15). The template raises named errors for bad options, string-encoded tool arguments and malformed schemas. Server errors are the runtime's (9 of 15). 15 + 5 + 7 + 14 + 7 + 8 + 9 = 65.); xAI API (Grok) 90 (Model reading of the checklist (tool use, structured output, caching, context, batch, SDKs, errors). Function calling with parallel calls on by default and `tool_choice` of auto, required, none or a named function (20). Guaranteed structured outputs (15). Automatic prompt caching, cached input at 0.25x on grok-4.7 ($0.50 per million) and 0.16x on grok-4.3 (15). 500,000-token context on grok-4.7 and 1,000,000 on grok-4.3, 13 of 15 for the default model's 500K. The Batch API is now 20% off on grok-4.7, 4.6 and 4.5 as well as the older models, with batch requests outside the rate limits (10 of 10, up from 5 on 6 October). One first-party SDK, `xai-sdk` for Python, with the OpenAI SDKs and Vercel's AI SDK documented as alternatives (5 of 10). Status codes documented with fixes, no Retry-After header found (12 of 15).)
- Maintenance & community, xAI API (Grok) +15: Jais 3 62 (Read for an open-weight model released on 15 October 2026. The last change to the template or code was on 15 October, within 30 days. The cards gained a technical report link on 25 October and a citation update on 27 October, which change no file a runtime loads (30). One family release, with dated builds before it (FP8 from 29 September, MLX from 1 October, GGUF on 12 and 13 October) and template fixes on 14 and 15 October, but no deprecation notices or successor history to judge. K2 Horizon came on 1 September and Jais 2 in December 2025 (10 of 20, the model reading of this line, held). One outside question, on MoVA-36B-A4B on 26 October, had no reply on 4 November, and IFM's GitHub repositories weren't read. The template fixes match the problem IFM's MLX cards describe (7 of 25, held). Recipes in vLLM's and SGLang's own docs, K2 Horizon support in llama.cpp's tagged builds from b11454 and FP8, GGUF and MLX builds from IFM, but no native mlx-lm support (11 of 15). Current dependencies (Transformers 5.13 to 5.15, vLLM 0.30), with no CI visible (4 of 10). 30 + 10 + 7 + 11 + 4 = 62.); xAI API (Grok) 77 (Model reading. grok-imagine-image-quality and grok-imagine-image-pro retired on 2 November 2026 as announced in September, Grok Voice 3.0 and custom moderation controls in October, Grok 4.7 on 21 September (30). No minimum notice period found. Retirements come as dated migration guides, retired slugs redirect to a replacement rather than failing, billed at the replacement's price, and grok-voice-2.0 was deprecated in October with no end date (4 of 12). Shutdowns in the last 90 days with dates given in advance, `grok-voice-transcribe-1.0` on 2 October and `grok-imagine-image-quality` on 2 November (8 of 8). Release notes several times a month but dated only by month, support by email and a Discord #help channel, not tested. On xai-sdk-python a collaborator commented on 2 of the 16 most recent threads with replies, and most outside pull requests since 23 October are open without a maintainer reply (10 of 15, down from 12). The repository has CI, release and version-bump workflows (5 of 10). One current first-party SDK, `xai-sdk` 1.21.0 tagged on 23 October, Python only (10 of 15). Supported runtimes stated, Python 3.10 or later (10).)
- Transparency & trust, xAI API (Grok) +8: Jais 3 55 (Apache-2.0 in every card's metadata, with staged training checkpoints as branches and training logs linked on Weights & Biases (not opened). There is no LICENSE file and the code repository is still 'coming soon'. A technical report is linked from 25 October but sits behind a bot check, so its data description is unread (24 of 30). Inputs stay on the owner's hardware because nothing is hosted, but no statement says so and no privacy document governs the weights (15 of 30). No deprecation policy, dated notices or version scheme (0 of 20). Safetensors weights carry no code, and the remote modelling and configuration code we read imports only torch, transformers and huggingface_hub, with no network calls. No telemetry statement (12 of 20). 24 + 15 + 0 + 12 = 51.); xAI API (Grok) 63 (Closed service under xAI's enterprise terms, with the Python SDK under Apache-2.0 (15). The docs agree with each other on no training, 30-day abuse retention, 30-day storage of stateful responses and the ZDR route, but the privacy policy, enterprise terms and DPA at x.ai/legal answered a Cloudflare block page on 6 October and again on 6 November, so they couldn't be compared (15 of 30). Dated migration guides and redirect tables for each retirement, but no written deprecation policy, and Chat Completions, Anthropic compatibility and grok-voice-2.0 are labelled deprecated with no date (12 of 20). The US regional endpoint states what stays in the US, the global endpoint guarantees no region, and no subprocessor list was readable (10 of 20).)