# Runpod vs Together GPU Clusters (slim)

> Together GPU Clusters scores 58.1 (C) to Runpod's 55.6 (C) for gpu compute. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/runpod-vs-together-gpu-clusters.md (~4,500 tokens) · this version ~2,180 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/runpod-vs-together-gpu-clusters.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/runpod-vs-together-gpu-clusters
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
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Together GPU Clusters scores 58.1 (C) on agent readiness against Runpod's 55.6 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Runpod leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. Both do gpu compute.

- Runpod: C 55.6, rank #864 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/runpod.min.md
- Together GPU Clusters: C 58.1, rank #768 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/together-gpu-clusters.min.md
- Runpod, good for Cost-sensitive inference and batch work that wants the widest GPU choice, from consumer cards to B300, with an MCP control plane. Ahead on Reliability, 57 against 38; Agent ergonomics, 62 against 55; Maintenance & community, 82 against 75. Also Runs on your own machine.
- Together GPU Clusters, good for Training, fine-tuning and batch jobs that need several 8-GPU nodes with InfiniBand, run by a pipeline that creates and deletes clusters. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 92 against 81. Also No incidents deducted, where Runpod loses 6 points for them.

| Category | Runpod | Together GPU Clusters |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 57 | 38 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 81 | 92 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 62 | 55 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 67 | 68 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 20 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 82 | 75 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 64 | 65 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Runpod | Together GPU Clusters |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Runpod | Together AI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.runpod.ai/v2` | `https://api.together.ai/v1/compute/clusters` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under Together's terms of service. The Python SDK and CLI are Apache-2.0 and the OpenAPI document is MIT |
| Last release | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-22 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-24 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-08-07 | no date given |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 314 stars, 22k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Runpod +19: Runpod 57 (Better Stack page at uptime.runpod.io with per-service and per-region history, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 4 November (Runpod's terms bar automated access to runpod.io and its subdomains) (20). Incident line kept at 0. The 1 October reading counted several majors, among them US-IL-1 without power for 6 hours 10 minutes on 14 and 15 August and serverless API errors for 1 hour 25 minutes on 6 September. The window since 1 October is unread, so the recorded award stands (0). The REST v2 OpenAPI file, in the copy Runpod keeps in its MCP repository (synced with production on 27 October), says limits are per user across every `/v2` route, with minute, hour and day windows, and gives `"minute";q=180;w=60, "hour";q=3600;w=3600, "day";q=43200;w=86400` as the policy header (15). The same file documents 429 with `Retry-After` and `RateLimit` headers, and the Python SDK's error guide (2.1.0, 3 November) honours `Retry-After`, backs off with jitter and does not retry other errors because a failed response can follow a successful mutation. Safe-retry guidance with no idempotency keys (12). No SLA found (0). Serverless and REST v2 are GA; batch jobs are beta (10). 20 + 0 + 15 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 57.); Together GPU Clusters 38 (Read with the hosted lines. status.together.ai lists the website, the playground and serverless models with no component for GPU clusters, and a vendor page with no component for the product takes 15 in this run, as for Together's Code Sandbox and fine-tuning listings (15). No incident history for clusters can be read (5). No rate limits for the clusters API found (0). Together's docs give 429 and 503 backoff guidance for its APIs, per the inference listing's 1 November check, and the CLI has `--non-interactive` and `--json` for scripted retries, but creation has no idempotency key (8). No SLA for clusters found; the published 99% commitment covers provisioned inference throughput only (0). Generally available since 9 September 2025 and out of the CLI's beta paths since 22 October 2026, with preemptible nodes in preview (10). 15+5+0+8+0+10 = 38.)
- Schema & documentation, Together GPU Clusters +11: Runpod 81 (OpenAPI for REST v2 at api.runpod.io/v2/openapi.json, with v1 and GraphQL schemas also published (25). llms.txt with .md pages (10). Guides explain queue-based against load-balanced endpoints and sync against async calls, with result retention for each (14). Job statuses are a fixed set (`IN_QUEUE`, `IN_PROGRESS`, `COMPLETED`, `FAILED`) and payload limits are stated (20 MB sync, 10 MB async, 1 MB per stream chunk) (10). Examples throughout; no error responses documented for the serverless operations (7). Dated release notes and a versioned API (15).); Together GPU Clusters 92 (Public OpenAPI 3.1 for /v1/compute/clusters and shared volumes, MIT, embedded in every reference page (25). llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every page (10). The docs say when to choose Kubernetes or Slurm and each capacity type, and the management page carries instructions for agents on reporting live availability and prices (18). Enums for cluster type, billing type, GPU type and status, required fields marked (13). CLI, Python, TypeScript and console steps on each task, with 402 and 403 cases documented, though no error catalogue for the clusters API (11). Versioned SDKs and a dated changelog with cluster entries (15). 25+10+18+13+11+15 = 92.)
- Agent ergonomics, Runpod +7: Runpod 62 (Results can be streamed in chunks of up to 1 MB and polled by job ID, and `include` sizes some REST v2 responses (12). REST v2 list calls take an opaque `cursor` with `limit` (1 to 1,000, 100 for builds, 200 for audit logs) and filters such as actor, action and time on audit logs, per the OpenAPI file in Runpod's MCP repository (20). No error codes or messages documented for serverless operations, per 1 October (5). `/retry`, `/cancel` and `/purge-queue` give safe recovery for jobs, and the MCP server marks destructive tools. No idempotency keys (10). FlashBoot on by default, Python and JavaScript SDKs, the Flash SDK and an official MCP server (15). 12 + 20 + 5 + 10 + 15 = 62.); Together GPU Clusters 55 (Cluster objects are compact, and `--json` gives machine-readable output, but list calls take no field selection (15). No pagination or filters on the clusters list (8). 402 and 403 with readable messages such as "Insufficient credits for cluster creation", and troubleshooting for common failures (12). Status polling until Ready is documented and deletes run non-interactively, but there is no idempotency key on creation and a duplicate create bills a second cluster (8). Official Python and TypeScript SDKs and a CLI, though a create takes GPU type, region, driver and CUDA versions, cluster type and billing type (12). 15+8+12+8+12 = 55.)
- Maintenance & community, Runpod +7: Runpod 82 (Latest release `runpod` 2.1.0 on 3 November 2026, and `@runpod/mcp-server` 4.9.1 on 2 November (30). In the window from 6 August, runpod-python tagged v1.12.0, v2.0.0 and v2.1.0, runpod-mcp thirteen releases from v3.3.0 (17 August) to 4.9.1, and flash v1.20.0 to v1.21.1, besides release candidates (20). Closed service with dated release notes and support; GitHub issue response times weren't readable (github.com refuses us) (12 of 25). Python and JavaScript SDKs, the Flash SDK and the MCP server are official; the standalone `runpod-flash` package was deprecated in October in favour of `runpod` (15). Package health not checked (5). 30 + 20 + 12 + 15 + 5 = 82.); Together GPU Clusters 75 (Closed service. The newest cluster change is CLI and SDK 3.0 on 22 October 2026, 15 days before this check (30). Dated cluster entries in the 90 days from 8 August include 12, 18, 19, 24, 27 and 28 August, 10 September and 22 October (20). Dated changelog, a support portal and Discord, with responsiveness not tested (8). Python SDK 3.1 and TypeScript SDK 1.0 are current and cover clusters (15). SDK CI and dependencies weren't audited (2). 30+20+8+15+2 = 75.)