# Massed Compute vs Modal

> Modal scores 63.6 (B) to Massed Compute's 42.3 (E) for gpu compute. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-modal
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-modal.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-modal.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-modal.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: 2026-10-09

Modal scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against Massed Compute's 42.3 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do gpu compute.

- Massed Compute: grade E, 42.3/100, rank #896 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/massed-compute.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/massed-compute.json
- Modal: grade B, 63.6/100, rank #382 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/modal.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/modal.json
- Best GPU and serverless compute for AI workloads: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/gpu-compute/index.md
- All 167 gpu compute comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpu-compute/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Massed Compute (E)

Good for: Agents that rent whole GPU VMs by the hour for training, fine-tuning or a model server and want a small MCP tool set with a read-only mode.

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: No status page, incident history or security.txt was found on any of the vendor's hosts

### Modal (B)

Good for: Python teams that want GPU functions, batch jobs and HTTP endpoints from one decorator with scale to zero.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 20
- Security & auth, 68 against 61
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 51
- Transparency & trust, 67 against 61

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- No incidents deducted, where Massed Compute loses 5 points for them

Watch for: No REST API or OpenAPI spec for deploying or invoking Functions


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Massed Compute | Modal | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 20 | 70 | Modal +50 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 70 | Modal +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 57 | Modal +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 61 | 68 | Modal +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 30 | Modal +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 85 | Modal +34 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 67 | Modal +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **42.3 · E** | **63.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Massed Compute | Modal |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Model platform |
| Vendor | Massed Compute | Modal |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://vm.massedcompute.com/api/v1` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Price for gpu compute | $5.43 per GPU-hour | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Massed Compute's Terms & Conditions and End User Licence Agreement. The `massed-compute-mcp` wrapper on GitHub is MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 17 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.Massed-Compute/mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-07-24 | 2026-09-28 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-05-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-22 | 2023-05-17 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 1 stars | 514 stars, 941k npm/wk, 10.1M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 4/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Massed Compute.** The hosted MCP server and REST API accept OAuth grants or API tokens in read-only and full-access tiers, and all 17 tools carry typed schemas and safety annotations in a public server card. No status page, rate limit figures or API changelog were found, a launch has no idempotency key, and the governing terms could not be read.

**Modal.** Scale to zero by default, per-second billing and about one-second container boots. No REST API or OpenAPI spec for deploying or invoking Functions.

## Before you call either

### Massed Compute

1. Use `https://vm.massedcompute.com/api/v1`. The older docs at api-docs.massedcompute.com describe a separate marketplace API on `api.massedcompute.com` whose keys come from support.
2. Ask the owner for a read-only token unless the task must launch or terminate. Read-only credentials cannot call launch, restart, terminate or SSH key changes.
3. Call `gpu_inventory_list` and `images_list` before `instances_launch`. Product names and image IDs are free values, and SXM-only images do not run on PCIe cards.
4. Expect 402 on launch until the owner has added credit and set a recharge amount and threshold. List instances before retrying a launch.
5. Terminate to end billing. Stopping keeps the full hourly charge, and termination deletes the instance data.

### Modal

1. Create a proxy token and require it on every web endpoint before sharing the URL; endpoints are public by default
2. Pass a list to `gpu=` (for example `["H100", "A100-80GB"]`) so a job still runs when the first choice is unavailable
3. Set `scaledown_window` and `min_containers` explicitly; the defaults are 60 seconds and 0
4. Use `.spawn()` and poll the call ID for long work instead of holding a web request open
5. Keep web endpoint traffic under 200 requests a second or ask Modal to raise the limit

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Massed Compute or Modal?

Modal scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against Massed Compute's 42.3 (E), and leads in every scored category.

### Can an agent call Massed Compute and Modal without installing anything?

Massed Compute has a hosted endpoint at https://vm.massedcompute.com/api/v1. No hosted endpoint is listed for Modal.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Massed Compute or Modal

- [Baseten vs Massed Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-massed-compute.md)
- [Baseten vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-modal.md)
- [Beam vs Massed Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-massed-compute.md)
- [Beam vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-modal.md)
- [Cerebrium vs Massed Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cerebrium-vs-massed-compute.md)
- [Cerebrium vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cerebrium-vs-modal.md)
- [CoreWeave vs Massed Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coreweave-vs-massed-compute.md)
- [CoreWeave vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coreweave-vs-modal.md)
- [Crusoe Cloud vs Massed Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-massed-compute.md)
- [Crusoe Cloud vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crusoe-cloud-vs-modal.md)
- [Hugging Face Inference Endpoints vs Massed Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hugging-face-inference-endpoints-vs-massed-compute.md)
- [Hugging Face Inference Endpoints vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hugging-face-inference-endpoints-vs-modal.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Massed Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-massed-compute.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-modal.md)
- [Koyeb vs Massed Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koyeb-vs-massed-compute.md)
- [Koyeb vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koyeb-vs-modal.md)
- [Lambda Cloud vs Massed Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lambda-vs-massed-compute.md)
- [Lambda Cloud vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lambda-vs-modal.md)
- [Massed Compute vs Nebius AI Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-nebius-ai-cloud.md)
- [Massed Compute vs Northflank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-northflank.md)
- [Massed Compute vs Replicate Deployments](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-replicate-deploy.md)
- [Massed Compute vs Runpod](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-runpod.md)
- [Massed Compute vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Massed Compute vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Massed Compute vs Verda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/massed-compute-vs-verda.md)
- [Modal vs Nebius AI Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-nebius-ai-cloud.md)
- [Modal vs Northflank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-northflank.md)
- [Modal vs Replicate Deployments](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-replicate-deploy.md)
- [Modal vs Runpod](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-runpod.md)
- [Modal vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Modal vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Modal vs Verda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-verda.md)