# Beam 1.0 vs SambaCloud

> SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) to Beam 1.0's 53.4 (D) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reflection-beam-vs-sambanova
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reflection-beam-vs-sambanova.md (~3,150 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reflection-beam-vs-sambanova.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reflection-beam-vs-sambanova.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
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-17

SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against Beam 1.0's 53.4 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Beam 1.0 leads on transparency & trust. Both do llm inference.

- Beam 1.0: grade D, 53.4/100, rank #786 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/reflection-beam.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/reflection-beam.json
- SambaCloud: grade B, 66.4/100, rank #321 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sambanova.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sambanova.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 326 models comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inference/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Beam 1.0 (D)

Good for: An OpenAI-compatible endpoint for a large open-weight coding and agent model, for builders who want the same model hosted or self-hosted under Apache-2.0.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 63

Watch for: The API is a public beta with no SLA, and per-organisation rate limits and the daily allocation are not published as numbers

### SambaCloud (B)

Good for: Agents that want open-weight models behind an OpenAI or Anthropic client with a free start and prices an agent can read from the API.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 85 against 40
- Security & auth, 58 against 46
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 50

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 2.5 out of 5

Watch for: Production models get a notice of two to three weeks, and 13 model ids were removed between 9 March and 9 June 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Beam 1.0 | SambaCloud | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 40 | 85 | SambaCloud +45 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 81 | Beam 1.0 +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 67 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 46 | 58 | SambaCloud +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 40 | SambaCloud +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 77 | SambaCloud +27 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 63 | Beam 1.0 +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **53.4 · D** | **66.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Beam 1.0 | SambaCloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Reflection | SambaNova Systems, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.reflection.ai/openai/v1` | `https://api.sambanova.ai/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Weights under Apache-2.0. The hosted Reflection API is a closed service under Reflection AI, Inc.'s commercial terms of service | Proprietary service under the SambaCloud Terms of Service. The SDKs and the OpenAPI document are Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Terms last updated |  | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated |  | 2023-05-27 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 2 stars, 76 npm/wk, 6.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | 3.5/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Beam 1.0.** The Reflection API is OpenAI-compatible, with an OpenAPI document, strict structured outputs and tool calls, and error codes that say when to retry, and the weights are Apache-2.0. It is a free public beta with unpublished daily limits and no per-token price, reasoning can't be turned off, and three API incidents were posted between 14 and 16 October 2026.

**SambaCloud.** Per-token prices and the model list are readable without a key at `/v1/models`, and a free tier needs no card. Production models get two to three weeks' notice before removal, 13 model ids left between March and June 2026, and the docs disagree with the live catalogue on MiniMax-M2.7.

## Before you call either

### Beam 1.0

1. Send `reasoning_effort` `low` or `medium` for short tasks. The default is `max`, and `none` or `minimal` return `400 unsupported_value`
2. Return every assistant message with its `reasoning_content` unchanged. If a turn comes back without it, start a new conversation, since later requests fail with `missing_required_parameter`
3. Don't rely on `stop` or `seed`. Both are accepted and ignored, so truncate output in your own code
4. Honour `x-should-retry: false` on a 429. It means a daily limit is spent and `Retry-After` counts to 00:00 UTC
5. Set `max_completion_tokens` yourself on long prompts. The default budget isn't reduced to fit the prompt and includes reasoning tokens

### SambaCloud

1. Call `GET https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/models` at start-up and use only ids it returns. The docs name models the endpoint no longer lists
2. Read `x-ratelimit-remaining-requests` and `x-ratelimit-remaining-requests-day` on every response. The free tier allows 20 requests a day per model
3. Treat 429 `queue_full` and 503 `maintenance` as retryable after a delay, and 410 `model_deprecated` as a signal to change model
4. Validate JSON output yourself. Schema enforcement is best effort and `strict: true` changes nothing
5. Check `max_completion_tokens` per model. DeepSeek-V3.1 caps output at 7,168 tokens and Llama 3.3 70B at 3,072

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Beam 1.0 or SambaCloud?

SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against Beam 1.0's 53.4 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Beam 1.0 leads on transparency & trust.

### Do Beam 1.0 and SambaCloud need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Beam 1.0 and SambaCloud without installing anything?

Yes. Beam 1.0 has a hosted endpoint at https://api.reflection.ai/openai/v1 and SambaCloud at https://api.sambanova.ai/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Beam 1.0 or SambaCloud

- [Claude API vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Claude API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Antseed vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Antseed vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-sambanova.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-sambanova.md)
- [DeepInfra vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [DeepInfra vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-sambanova.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Glimpse vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elorian-glimpse-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Glimpse vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elorian-glimpse-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [GroqCloud vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [GroqCloud vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Jais 3 vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jais-3-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Jais 3 vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jais-3-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Meta Model API vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meta-model-api-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Meta Model API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meta-model-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Mistral AI API vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-api-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Mistral AI API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Muse Spark Open vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/muse-spark-open-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Muse Spark Open vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/muse-spark-open-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Novita AI vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/novita-ai-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Novita AI vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/novita-ai-vs-sambanova.md)
- [OpenAI API vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-api-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [OpenAI API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [OpenRouter vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [OpenRouter vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Prism Inference vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prism-inference-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Beam 1.0 vs RouterPlus](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reflection-beam-vs-routerplus.md)
- [Beam 1.0 vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reflection-beam-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Beam 1.0 vs StepFun API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reflection-beam-vs-stepfun-api.md)
- [Beam 1.0 vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/reflection-beam-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
- [RouterPlus vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/routerplus-vs-sambanova.md)
- [SambaCloud vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sambanova-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [SambaCloud vs StepFun API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sambanova-vs-stepfun-api.md)
- [SambaCloud vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sambanova-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nemotron-3-5-super-vl-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nemotron-3-5-super-vl-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Prism Inference vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prism-inference-vs-sambanova.md)

---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp