Head to head · LLM inference · October 2026 research run
Muse Ember vs Vercel AI Gateway
Vercel AI Gateway scores 67.8 (B) on agent readiness against Muse Ember's 51.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do llm inference.
Best model APIs and inference for AI agents · All 871 models comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Agents that hand out many small, bounded tasks (sub-agents, tool loops, routing, extraction over thousands of files) and want a cheap multimodal model with a 1M context behind the same API as a bigger Muse model.
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where Vercel AI Gateway loses 3 points for them
Watch for
No weights and no parameter count published, so it can't be run locally
Best for Teams that want one key, one bill, budgets and failover in front of many model providers, especially on Vercel with OIDC.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 79 against 40
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 60
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 72
- Security & auth, 79 against 64
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 46
- Transparency & trust, 71 against 53
Watch for
The free monthly credit needs a valid payment method on the team, and its amount is not stated in the reviewed docs
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Reliability Vercel AI Gateway +39
Muse Ember 40
Model reading, for the surface it's called on, Meta Model API. No status page with readable history, per the meta-model-api listing's 4 November check (0), so no readable incident history (5). Rate limits published per team and per model, 3,000 RPM and 4,000,000 TPM for muse-ember-1.0, read 9 November (15). 429 and 503 with Retry-After, backoff guidance and rate-limit headers, per the meta-model-api listing (15). No SLA found (0). Muse Ember carries no preview label, but the API opened as a public preview in July and no general-availability notice was found, so half, as for the platform (5). 0 + 5 + 15 + 15 + 0 + 5 = 40.
Vercel AI Gateway 79
Hosted reading. AI Gateway is a component on www.vercel-status.com (20). The history feed, re-read on 1 November 2026, has 25 entries from 23 July to 23 October, so it covers the whole 90 days from 3 August. None names AI Gateway in its title or text. The Drains, Logs and Observability incidents (6, 17 and 20 August, 16 to 17 September, 10 October in Washington, which names delayed logs, metrics and traces in general, and 23 October) name no AI Gateway surface, and none reports requests failing. Component tags sit in the status API, which robots.txt disallows, so they were not used. A readable page that posts incidents, none touching the product, is a clean record, as vercel-connect's incidents were read from the same feed (30). The rate-limit page, re-read on 1 November, says it describes behaviour rather than fixed numbers. The paid tier has no gateway limit, and the free tier's per-model limits are not published (5 of 15). A 429 has a documented JSON body, some carry retry-after, the docs give backoff code and separate a 429 from a 402 budget rejection, and failed provider attempts are retried on other providers (14 of 15). The Enterprise SLA excludes the APIs and CLI, and no SLA naming AI Gateway was found (0). Generally available since 21 August 2025. Token Pass is early access and the Python SDK is in beta (10).
Maintenance & community Vercel AI Gateway +33
Muse Ember 46
Model reading. Released 9 November 2026 (30). No deprecation policy or notice period found, per the platform reading (0 of 12). Dated launches on the API, the latest Muse Wonder on 12 October and Muse Ember on 9 November (8 of 8). No Model API changelog; a help centre with tickets (8 of 15). No SDK of Meta's own (0 of 15, 0 of 10). 30 + 0 + 8 + 8 + 0 = 46.
Vercel AI Gateway 79
Closed service, read on the model lines. The newest changelog entry naming AI Gateway is dated 30 October 2026 (30). Twelve models in the model list carry a deprecated_at date on 1 November, from 5 November 2026 (4 days ahead) to 26 February 2027. No minimum notice period was found, and access to Claude Fable 5 was suspended on 12 June 2026 under a government directive without notice and restored on 1 July (6 of 12). No AI Gateway endpoint was shut down in the last 90 days that we found (7 of 8). 95 changelog entries name AI Gateway from 3 August to 30 October 2026, and support runs from the dashboard (13 of 15). Replies to issues on vercel/ai were not read, because GitHub's pages refuse our reader (3 of 10). @ai-sdk/gateway is at 4.0.132 in vercel/ai, versioned on 30 October 2026, and had 29,597,661 npm downloads in the week to 12 October per the 17 October check. The Python SDK is in beta (14 of 15). Three runtime dependencies and a test file beside most modules. CI was not checked (6 of 10).
Transparency & trust Vercel AI Gateway +18
Muse Ember 53
Editorial half. Closed model under the Model API terms, with clear terms and law; no weights and no parameter count, unlike Muse Spark Open and Muse Glimmer (15). Standard content isn't used for training, retention periods not stated outside zero retention (18 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices (0). A subprocessor list linked but not read, no data locations (8 of 20). 15 + 18 + 0 + 8 = 41.
Vercel AI Gateway 71
Closed service under the Terms of Service last updated 19 October 2026, the AI Product Terms with an AI Gateway section, and Token Pass terms on its docs page. Routed models carry the terms of 64 providers listed in the Notices and Licence Information, and the SDK is Apache-2.0 (18 of 30). The FAQ, the ZDR page and the logs page agree that prompt and response content is not kept. The terms place content sent to providers under the providers' own terms, give the no-training warranty only to Enterprise and bar sensitive personal information in Input. The DPA covers Pro and Enterprise, not Hobby, and the privacy notice gives retention criteria, not periods (17 of 30). No deprecation policy found. Model retirements carry dates in the model list, and the AI Product Terms let Vercel change fees, change or end anything in beta without notice, and end Token Pass with a pro-rata refund (8 of 20). Provider terms are listed per provider and regional inference names four regions, while the gateway itself may process a request in any Vercel region. The subprocessor list on security.vercel.com was not read (12 of 20).
Security & auth Vercel AI Gateway +15
Muse Ember 64
Platform readings are the meta-model-api listing's of 4 November. Team keys, named, revocable, no scopes (20 of 30). Standard mode only, so content isn't used to train Meta models under the terms, with safety use reserved (17 of 20). Retention 'as needed' with zero retention through sales (10 of 15). Usage dashboard by model, no per-call log (5 of 15). No security.txt on dev.meta.ai, a bug bounty and a security commitments page, no named certification (12 of 20). 20 + 17 + 10 + 5 + 12 = 64.
Vercel AI Gateway 79
Router, read on the model lines. AI Gateway API keys belong to a team, can be limited to one project and given an expiry and a budget, are deactivated when their creator leaves the team, and can be revoked without authentication by reporting a leaked key. Keys carry no per-model or read-only scope apart from the Token Pass key type. On Vercel, project OIDC tokens replace long-lived keys (24 of 30). Vercel says it does not train on prompts, and the AI Product Terms make that a warranty only for Enterprise subscriptions. Provider training is filtered only when disallowPromptTraining or ZDR is set, the filter does not apply to BYOK, and the terms say Stealth Model providers may train on inputs (12 of 20). The gateway does not keep prompt or response content. Provider ZDR is free per request on Pro and Enterprise and not available on Hobby, and BYOK keys are skipped under ZDR unless marked (12 of 15). Per-request logs record status, provider attempts, tokens, cost and authentication method, with routing details kept 30 days and Trace Drains and spend reports on paid plans (13 of 15). Valid security.txt with HackerOne (re-read on 1 November, expires 28 September 2027), SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001:2022 as Vercel states them, and a public bulletin for the April 2026 incident, closed on 16 October 2026 (18 of 20).
Schema & documentation Vercel AI Gateway +14
Muse Ember 60
Model reading. No OpenAPI file; the Markdown reference is the contract, per the meta-model-api listing (0). llms.txt and Markdown copies of every page (10). The Muse Ember page and choose-a-model page say what to hand it and what not to (hard single-shot coding, knowledge-heavy questions, visual coding), with model ID, inputs, context, max output and effort range (18 of 20). JSON Schema tools and output, reasoning effort an enum, per the platform reading (12 of 15). Curl, Python and TypeScript examples and the platform's error guide (15). A versioned model ID and a dated launch post, with no API changelog (5 of 15). 0 + 10 + 18 + 12 + 15 + 5 = 60.
Vercel AI Gateway 74
Router, scored on the API lines. Vercel's OpenAPI 3.0.3 document has AI Gateway management paths (budgets, routing rules, virtual model configs, routers) and POST /api-keys. It does not cover the inference routes on ai-gateway.vercel.sh or /v1/models, /v1/credits, /v1/generation and /v1/report, which follow the OpenAI and Anthropic formats and the REST reference page (12 of 25). Every docs page is served as Markdown, and vercel.com/llms.txt lists AI Gateway and the keyless model list (10). The docs say when to use AI Gateway, which API format suits which client, and what each control leaves out, such as BYOK spend outside budgets (16 of 20). providerOptions.gateway fields are documented in tables with types, and the model list names each model's supported parameters. The request bodies have no published schema of their own (9 of 15). cURL, TypeScript and Python examples on most pages, and error tables in the FAQ, the REST reference and the Token Pass pages. The Chat Completions error list omits 402 (13 of 15). Paths carry /v1, the changelog is dated, with 95 entries naming AI Gateway from 3 August to 30 October 2026, and @ai-sdk/gateway keeps a CHANGELOG. The changelog sitemap dates one AI Gateway entry to 25 March 2025, before the alpha (14 of 15).
Agent ergonomics Vercel AI Gateway +11
Muse Ember 72
Model reading. Tool calls, parallel calls, computer use and search grounding, with tool_choice limited to auto per the platform reading (15 of 20). Strict structured output (15). Automatic prompt caching, cached input at 4% of the input price (15). A 1,048,576-token context, but requests over 200K input tokens bill at three times the rate for the whole request (12 of 15). No batch endpoint (0). No SDK of Meta's own; OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs against compatible endpoints (0). OpenAI-style errors with fixes and retryable codes (15). 15 + 15 + 15 + 12 + 0 + 0 + 15 = 72.
Vercel AI Gateway 83
Router, read on the model lines. Tool calling is documented on all six surfaces and 303 of 498 models carry the tool-use tag on 1 November, with behaviour depending on the model routed (16 of 20). Structured output is documented per surface and tagged on 278 models (13 of 15). caching: 'auto' adds Anthropic cache markers, cache_ttl asks for one-hour entries, x-session-affinity keeps a conversation on one provider, and cache-read prices are listed per model (14 of 15). 162 models list a context of one million tokens or more, a judgement call since a router has no default model (15). The SDK source has a gateway-batch.ts file, but no batch endpoint or batch discount was found in the docs (2 of 10). The AI SDK for TypeScript, the AI SDK for Python in beta, and the OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs with a changed base URL (10). Errors return message and type, an exceeded budget answers 402 apart from a 429, the SDK has ten typed Gateway*Error classes, and the FAQ maps each status to a fix (13 of 15).
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Muse Ember | Vercel AI Gateway | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 40 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +39 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 60 | 74 | Vercel AI Gateway +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 72 | 83 | Vercel AI Gateway +11 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 64 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +15 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 46 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +33 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 53 | 71 | Vercel AI Gateway +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| Total | D 51.8/100 | B 67.8/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Muse Ember | Vercel AI Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model router |
| Vendor | Meta | Vercel Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.meta.ai/v1 | https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1 |
| Transports | HTTP | |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Closed model, used through Meta Model API and Muse Code under the Meta Model API Terms of Service (last updated 9 October 2026). No open weights; Meta's open-weight models are Muse Spark Open and Muse Glimmer | Proprietary service under Vercel's Terms of Service and AI Product Terms, with Token Pass terms on its docs page. Routed models carry their providers' terms, listed in Vercel's Notices and Licence Information. The @ai-sdk/gateway provider is Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-09 | 2026-10-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-02 | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-06-01 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| 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 | 29.6M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |
How the scores have moved
Muse Ember
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
Muse Ember
A cheap, capable model for the repeated parts of agent work, at $0.10 and $0.50 per million tokens with a 1M context and Meta's figures putting it level with Claude Haiku 5.5 on fewer tokens. Launched today on an API with no readable status page, SLA or deprecation policy, and closed, with no weights.
Vercel AI Gateway
Token prices pass through with no markup, prompts are not stored by the gateway, and budgets, provider failover and per-request logs are built in. The free monthly credit needs a card on file, rate limits are not published as numbers, no SLA covers the API, and the contractual promise not to train on content applies to Enterprise subscriptions only.
Before you call either
Muse Ember
- Call https://api.meta.ai/v1/responses (or /chat/completions or /messages) with model muse-ember-1.0 and a bearer MODEL_API_KEY
- Set the effort explicitly, reasoning.effort on Responses or reasoning_effort on Chat Completions. It defaults to max, and none isn't accepted; minimal or low suits classification and routing
- Keep input under 200K tokens a request, cached tokens and previous_response_id history included, or the whole request bills at the long-context rate
- Use it for sub-agents and bounded repeated tasks, and a larger Muse model for the plan, as Meta advises
- Use strict structured output for extraction and routing steps
- In Claude Code, map the haiku alias and sub-agent model to muse-ember-1.0, per Meta's guide
Vercel AI Gateway
- Read
GET https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/modelswithout a key to pick a model ID and check its price, context, ZDR and no-training flags before calling - Set
zeroDataRetentionordisallowPromptTrainingto true inproviderOptions.gatewayon sensitive requests. Default routing ignores provider retention and training policies - Treat a 429 as retryable and honour
retry-afterwhen present. A 402 withquota_for_entity_exceededis a spent budget, so do not retry it - On a Token Pass key, a 403 with
no_providers_availablemeans spent credit or a model outside the pass. Retry with a standard AI Gateway key, which bills credits - Set
inferenceRegionwhen data residency matters. The defaultglobalmay run inference outside the user's jurisdiction
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Muse Ember or Vercel AI Gateway?
Vercel AI Gateway scores 67.8 (B) on agent readiness against Muse Ember's 51.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.
Do Muse Ember and Vercel AI Gateway need an API key?
Muse Ember needs an API key. Vercel AI Gateway takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Muse Ember and Vercel AI Gateway without installing anything?
Yes. Muse Ember has a hosted endpoint at https://api.meta.ai/v1 and Vercel AI Gateway at https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1.
Other comparisons with Muse Ember or Vercel AI Gateway
- Amazon Bedrock vs Muse Ember
- Amazon Bedrock vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Claude API vs Muse Ember
- Claude API vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Antseed vs Muse Ember
- Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models vs Muse Ember
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- BlockRun.AI vs Muse Ember
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- Eden AI vs Muse Ember
- Glimpse vs Muse Ember
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- Inkling 2 Small vs Muse Ember
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- Jais 3 vs Muse Ember
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- Meta Model API vs Muse Ember
- Meta Model API vs Vercel AI Gateway
- MiniMax API vs Muse Ember
- MiniMax API vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Mistral AI API vs Muse Ember
- Mistral AI API vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Muse Ember vs Muse Spark Open
- Muse Ember vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
- Muse Ember vs Novita AI
- Muse Ember vs OpenAI API
- Muse Ember vs OpenRouter
- Muse Ember vs Prism Inference
- Muse Ember vs Router.com (Ramp Router)
- Muse Ember vs Beam 1.0
- Muse Ember vs RouterPlus
- Muse Ember vs SambaCloud
- Muse Ember vs SiliconFlow
- Muse Ember vs Simplismart
- Muse Ember vs StepFun API
- Muse Ember vs SWE-2 Flash
- Muse Ember vs Tencent Cloud TokenHub
- Muse Ember vs Together AI Inference
- Muse Ember vs Vertex AI (Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform)
- Muse Ember vs xAI API (Grok)
- Muse Spark Open vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Novita AI vs Vercel AI Gateway
- OpenAI API vs Vercel AI Gateway
- OpenRouter vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Beam 1.0 vs Vercel AI Gateway
- SambaCloud vs Vercel AI Gateway
- SiliconFlow vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Simplismart vs Vercel AI Gateway
- StepFun API vs Vercel AI Gateway
- SWE-2 Flash vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Together AI Inference vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Vercel AI Gateway vs Vertex AI (Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform)
- Vercel AI Gateway vs xAI API (Grok)
- Antseed vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Eden AI vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Hugging Face Inference Providers vs Vercel AI Gateway
- LiteLLM vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Router.com (Ramp Router) vs Vercel AI Gateway
- RouterPlus vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Tencent Cloud TokenHub vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Prism Inference vs Vercel AI Gateway
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/muse-ember-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/muse-ember.json·/api/v1/tools/vercel-ai-gateway.json - From a terminal
anchor compare muse-ember vercel-ai-gateway(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "muse-ember", "b": "vercel-ai-gateway"}at/mcp, no key