# Nebius AI Cloud vs Thunder Compute

> Nebius AI Cloud scores 67.2 (B) on agent readiness against Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Thunder Compute leads on reliability. Both do compute gpu. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-09

Nebius AI Cloud scores 67.2 (B) on agent readiness against Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Thunder Compute leads on reliability. Both do compute gpu.

- Nebius AI Cloud: grade B, 67.2/100, rank #240 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nebius-ai-cloud.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nebius-ai-cloud.json
- Thunder Compute: grade C, 56.1/100, rank #576 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/thunder-compute.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/thunder-compute.json

## Which one, for what

### Nebius AI Cloud (B)

Good for: Teams that want whole GPU VMs or InfiniBand clusters in Europe, the UK, Israel or the US with IAM, Terraform and an SLA, and are content to manage endpoint lifecycles themselves.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 70
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 48
- Security & auth, 81 against 51
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 64

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Status page lists 14 incidents marked major between 14 July and 8 October 2026, including about 21 hours of partial degradation in us-central1 on 19 August

### Thunder Compute (C)

Good for: Agents in coding tools that rent a single persistent GPU machine for development, fine-tuning or a model server, at low hourly prices and over MCP.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 65 against 57

Watch for: No rate limits, 429 guidance or SLA were found in the reviewed documentation, and the terms disclaim availability


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Nebius AI Cloud | Thunder Compute | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 65 | Thunder Compute +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 70 | Nebius AI Cloud +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 48 | Nebius AI Cloud +29 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 81 | 51 | Nebius AI Cloud +30 |
| 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) | 82 | 79 | Nebius AI Cloud +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 64 | Nebius AI Cloud +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67.2 · B** | **56.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Nebius AI Cloud | Thunder Compute |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Nebius | Thunder Compute |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.nebius.cloud` | `https://api.thundercompute.com:8443/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| Price for compute gpu | $1.35 per GPU-hour | $0.219 per GB per month |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Nebius Services Agreement. The API definitions, the Go, Python and JavaScript SDKs and the MCP server on GitHub are MIT | Proprietary service under Thunder Compute's Terms and Conditions. The `tnr` CLI on GitHub is MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.Thunder-Compute/thunder-compute` |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-28 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-28 |
| 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 | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 4.1k npm/wk, 469k PyPI/wk | 34 stars |

## Verdicts

**Nebius AI Cloud.** One API definition generates the REST and gRPC interfaces, the CLI, Terraform provider and three SDKs, with a 602-operation OpenAPI document, `X-Idempotency-Key` and role-scoped service accounts. The status page lists 14 major incidents between 14 July and 8 October 2026, no request rate limits were found, and signup needs a browser and a card.

**Thunder Compute.** The hosted MCP server signs in with OAuth and separate read and write scopes, and the REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document with keyless price and availability endpoints. No rate limits, SLA or API changelog were found, instance creation has no idempotency key, and instances cannot be stopped, only deleted.

## Before you call either

### Nebius AI Cloud

1. Use a service account with an authorised key, then exchange a five-minute RS256 JWT at `https://auth.eu.nebius.com/oauth2/token/exchange` for a 12-hour Bearer token
2. Send `X-Idempotency-Key` with a random UUID on every create, update and delete, since a 504 can follow a call that succeeded
3. Poll the returned operation (`/ai/v1/endpoints/operations/{id}`) until `status` is set; concurrent operations on one resource are not supported
4. Stop or delete endpoints when idle. A stopped endpoint bills nothing, a stopped Devlab or VM still bills for its disk
5. Check region support first. Serverless AI is absent from `eu-south1` and `us-north1`, and each GPU platform exists in one to four regions
6. Run the beta `nebius/mcp-server` with safe mode on (the default); `nebius_cli_execute` can run any CLI command when `SAFE_MODE=false`

### Thunder Compute

1. Call `GET /v2/status` or the `get_availability` tool before creating an instance. Availability can change before launch, and creation fails when a type is sold out.
2. List instances before retrying a failed create, because the call has no idempotency key.
3. Pass `public_key` on create. If omitted, the response carries a generated private key that is returned once.
4. To pause work, create a snapshot, delete the instance and later create a new instance from the snapshot. Snapshot storage keeps billing until deleted.
5. For headless use set `TNR_API_TOKEN` to a token from the console. The MCP server needs a browser sign-in on first connection.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Nebius AI Cloud or Thunder Compute?

Nebius AI Cloud scores 67.2 (B) on agent readiness against Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Thunder Compute leads on reliability.

### Do Nebius AI Cloud and Thunder Compute need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Nebius AI Cloud and Thunder Compute without installing anything?

Yes. Nebius AI Cloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.nebius.cloud and Thunder Compute at https://api.thundercompute.com:8443/v1.


## For agents

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

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