# Luma AI API vs Runway API

> Runway API has a score of 61.1 (C) against Luma AI API's 48.7 (D). Both do video generate. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 50 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/luma-vs-runway.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: 2026-10-05

Runway API has a score of 61.1 (C) against Luma AI API's 48.7 (D). Both do video generate. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 50 points.

- Luma AI API: grade D, 48.7/100, rank #374 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/luma.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/luma.json
- Runway API: grade C, 61.1/100, rank #232 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/runway.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/runway.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Luma AI API for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick Runway API for reliability (+25), schema & documentation (+50), agent ergonomics (+9), maintenance & community (+5).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Luma AI API | Runway API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 75 | Runway API +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 43 | 93 | Runway API +50 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 75 | Runway API +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 48 | 51 | Runway API +3 |
| 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) | 57 | 62 | Runway API +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 57 | Luma AI API +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **48.7 · D** | **61.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Luma AI API | Runway API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Luma AI | Runway |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://agents.lumalabs.ai/v1` | `https://api.dev.runwayml.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-08-05 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 2 stars, 982 npm/wk, 212 PyPI/wk | 20 stars, 56k npm/wk, 67k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 4/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Luma AI API.** Dollar prices per clip, $0.30 for 5 seconds at 720p, no credits to convert. Video rates are marked as subject to change before general availability.

**Runway API.** OpenAPI 3.1, llms.txt and Markdown copies of every docs page. Gen-3 Alpha Turbo and Gen-4 Aleph were removed on 2026-07-30 with no prior notice in the changelog.

## Before you call either

### Luma AI API

1. Send model `ray-3.2` and type `video`, with resolution and duration inside `video`. Older model names are rejected
2. Poll GET /v1/generations/{id} until completed or failed, then copy the presigned URL
3. On 429, read `detail`. Rate limit exceeded means wait Retry-After, Too many concurrent jobs means wait for a job to finish
4. Use keyframes with `keyframe_indexes` for 10 second clips. start_frame and end_frame only work at 5 seconds

### Runway API

1. Send `X-Runway-Version: 2024-11-06` on every request or it fails
2. Use the SDK's wait-for-output helper or poll GET /v1/tasks/{id} until SUCCEEDED or FAILED
3. Don't retry a SAFETY.* failure unchanged. It's moderation, not an outage
4. Take model IDs from the models page, not memory. Two were removed without notice on 2026-07-30
5. Copy outputs to your own storage. URLs expire within 24 to 48 hours

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