Massed Compute vs Runpod

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.

Runpod

Per-second billing across more than a dozen serverless GPU classes, H100 at $4.79 and A100 80 GB at $2.72 an hour. Data-centre outages of 6 to 24 hours in each of July, August and September 2026.

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.

Runpod

1. Create a Restricted or Read Only key per endpoint for the agent, not an All key
2. Use REST v2 at api.runpod.io/v2 with a Bearer header; avoid GraphQL, which puts the key in the URL
3. Fetch /run results within 30 minutes and /runsync results within 1 minute, or they're gone
4. Call /retry on a failed job ID rather than submitting a duplicate job
5. Check /health before relying on an endpoint idle for a week, since max workers drop to 0