# Lambda Cloud vs Verda

> Verda scores 62.3 (B) on agent readiness against Lambda Cloud's 50 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do compute gpu. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
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- Updated: 2026-10-09

Verda scores 62.3 (B) on agent readiness against Lambda Cloud's 50 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do compute gpu.

- Lambda Cloud: grade D, 50/100, rank #695 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lambda.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lambda.json
- Verda: grade B, 62.3/100, rank #396 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/verda.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/verda.json

## Which one, for what

### Lambda Cloud (D)

Good for: Agents or pipelines that need a whole GPU machine with SSH for hours, such as training or batch jobs, and will manage the lifecycle themselves.

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Verda loses 3 points for them

Watch for: No scale to zero, autoscaling or endpoints; an idle VM bills until terminated

### Verda (B)

Good for: Agents that rent whole GPU machines or clusters in Finland for training or batch work, or deploy scale-to-zero container endpoints, and that can run a local CLI for MCP.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 67 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 69
- Security & auth, 68 against 60
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 5
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 58

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No free tier. Accounts are prepaid, and instances are discontinued and volumes deleted when the balance reaches zero


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Lambda Cloud | Verda | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 67 | Verda +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 82 | Verda +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 63 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 60 | 68 | Verda +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 5 | 83 | Verda +78 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 76 | Verda +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **50 · D** | **62.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Lambda Cloud | Verda |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Lambda | Verda |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://cloud.lambda.ai/api/v1` | `https://api.verda.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| Price for compute gpu | $9.86 per GPU-hour | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under Verda's Terms of Service. The CLI, the Python SDK and the Go SDK on GitHub are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 18 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-08-01 | 2025-09-30 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-01-01 | 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 | 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 | yes | yes |
| Popularity | none | 10k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Lambda Cloud.** H100 SXM at $3.99 and B200 at $6.69 an hour with per-minute billing. No scale to zero, autoscaling or endpoints; an idle VM bills until terminated.

**Verda.** The REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document, a dated changelog, published rate limits with `Retry-After`, and an audit log endpoint. The CLI's MCP server refuses billed or destructive calls without `confirm: true`. Access needs a browser signup and a prepaid balance, credentials carry one scope, and instance creation has no idempotency key.

## Before you call either

### Lambda Cloud

1. Call `GET /instance-types` first and read `regions_with_capacity_available` before trying to launch
2. Space launch calls 12 seconds apart; a sixth in a minute returns 429 with `global/rate-limited`
3. Branch on the error `code`, not the `message` or `suggestion`, which Lambda says may change
4. List instances before retrying a failed launch, since there's no idempotency key and a retry can start a second machine
5. Terminate the instance in a `finally` block; billing runs by the minute until you do

### Verda

1. Exchange the client ID and secret at `POST /v1/oauth2/token`, then send the access token as a Bearer header. It expires after 3,600 seconds, so refresh it.
2. Send `location_code` on every create call. Requests without it have returned 400 since March 2026.
3. Call `GET /v1/instance-availability` before launching. `POST /v1/instances` returns 503 `service_unavailable` when the location has no capacity.
4. List instances before retrying a failed launch, because create has no idempotency key.
5. Use the `delete` action to stop charges. `shutdown` keeps billing, and deleted volumes stay recoverable for 96 hours unless `delete_permanently` is set.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Lambda Cloud or Verda?

Verda scores 62.3 (B) on agent readiness against Lambda Cloud's 50 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Lambda Cloud and Verda need an API key?

Lambda Cloud needs an API key. Verda uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Lambda Cloud and Verda without installing anything?

Yes. Lambda Cloud has a hosted endpoint at https://cloud.lambda.ai/api/v1 and Verda at https://api.verda.com/v1.


## For agents

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

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