# Runway API vs Vidu API

> Runway API has a score of 61.1 (C) against Vidu API's 40.4 (E). Both do video generate. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 45 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/runway-vs-vidu.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
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Runway API has a score of 61.1 (C) against Vidu API's 40.4 (E). Both do video generate. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 45 points.

- Runway API: grade C, 61.1/100, rank #232 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/runway.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/runway.json
- Vidu API: grade E, 40.4/100, rank #423 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vidu.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vidu.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Runway API for reliability (+40), schema & documentation (+45), agent ergonomics (+20), security & auth (+23), maintenance & community (+5), transparency & trust (+8).

Pick Vidu API for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Runway API | Vidu API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 35 | Runway API +40 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 93 | 48 | Runway API +45 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 55 | Runway API +20 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 51 | 28 | Runway API +23 |
| 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) | 62 | 57 | Runway API +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 49 | Runway API +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **61.1 · C** | **40.4 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Runway API | Vidu API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Runway | ShengShu Technology |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.dev.runwayml.com/v1` | `https://api.vidu.com/ent/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | none |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-15 |
| Popularity | 20 stars, 56k npm/wk, 67k PyPI/wk | 5 stars, 25 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Runway API.** OpenAPI 3.1, llms.txt and Markdown copies of every docs page. Gen-3 Alpha Turbo and Gen-4 Aleph were removed on 2026-07-30 with no prior notice in the changelog.

**Vidu API.** Q3 Turbo from $0.035 a second at 540p, about half that off-peak. No llms.txt, OpenAPI file or error-code reference.

## Before you call either

### Runway API

1. Send `X-Runway-Version: 2024-11-06` on every request or it fails
2. Use the SDK's wait-for-output helper or poll GET /v1/tasks/{id} until SUCCEEDED or FAILED
3. Don't retry a SAFETY.* failure unchanged. It's moderation, not an outage
4. Take model IDs from the models page, not memory. Two were removed without notice on 2026-07-30
5. Copy outputs to your own storage. URLs expire within 24 to 48 hours

### Vidu API

1. Send `Authorization: Token $VIDU_API_KEY`. The scheme is Token, not Bearer
2. POST the task, then poll the Get Creation endpoint by task id or set `callback_url`
3. Set `off_peak` only for jobs that can wait up to 48 hours. It roughly halves the credit rate
4. Set `audio` to true for dialogue and sound on Q3. It's off by default
5. Keep the AI-generated label on outputs. The terms forbid removing it

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