# SambaCloud vs SiliconFlow

> SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) to SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sambanova-vs-siliconflow
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sambanova-vs-siliconflow.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sambanova-vs-siliconflow.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sambanova-vs-siliconflow.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: 2026-10-09

SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do llm inference.

- SambaCloud: grade B, 66.4/100, rank #293 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sambanova.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sambanova.json
- SiliconFlow: grade D, 46.7/100, rank #848 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/siliconflow.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/siliconflow.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 136 models comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inference/index.md

## Which one, for what

### 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 33
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 67 against 60
- Security & auth, 58 against 39
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 47
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 51

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

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

### SiliconFlow (D)

Good for: Agents that want recent open-weight chat models, plus image, video and speech, behind one OpenAI-style key at low per-token prices, and can live without a status page or SLA.

Watch for: No status page, incident history or SLA was found, and the terms disclaim any uptime or availability commitment


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | SambaCloud | SiliconFlow | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 85 | 33 | SambaCloud +52 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 65 | SambaCloud +16 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 60 | SambaCloud +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 39 | SambaCloud +19 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 35 | SambaCloud +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 47 | SambaCloud +30 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 51 | SambaCloud +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.4 · B** | **46.7 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | SambaCloud | SiliconFlow |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | SambaNova Systems, Inc. | SiliconFlow Labs Pte. Ltd. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.sambanova.ai/v1` | `https://api.siliconflow.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the SambaCloud Terms of Service. The SDKs and the OpenAPI document are Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service under the SiliconFlow Terms of Use |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2023-05-27 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 2 stars, 76 npm/wk, 6.1k PyPI/wk | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**SiliconFlow.** Per-token prices for every listed model are public, and one key reaches chat, embeddings, reranking, image, video and speech through OpenAI-style and Anthropic-style routes. No status page, SLA, security page or official SDK was found, release notes stop at 11 June 2026, and several model removals are dated the same day as their notice.

## Before you call either

### 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

### SiliconFlow

1. Set the OpenAI client's base URL to `https://api.siliconflow.com/v1`, or the Anthropic client's to `https://api.siliconflow.com/`, and send the key as a Bearer token
2. Take model ids from the model pages or `GET /v1/models`, not from the OpenAPI enum or the function calling guide, which list removed models
3. Check the `model` field of each response. On 11 June 2026 traffic for GLM-5 and Kimi-K2.5 was routed to successor models
4. Use `response_format` of `json_object` only where the model page says JSON Mode is supported, and keep `max_tokens` about 10,000 below the context length
5. Set the Claude Code environment variables by hand. The automated route pipes a script from an Amazon S3 bucket into bash

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, SambaCloud or SiliconFlow?

SambaCloud scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D), and leads in every scored category.

### Do SambaCloud and SiliconFlow need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call SambaCloud and SiliconFlow without installing anything?

Yes. SambaCloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.sambanova.ai/v1 and SiliconFlow at https://api.siliconflow.com/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with SambaCloud or SiliconFlow

- [Claude API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Claude API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Antseed vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Antseed vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-sambanova.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [DeepInfra vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-sambanova.md)
- [DeepInfra vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [GroqCloud vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-sambanova.md)
- [GroqCloud vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Mistral AI API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Mistral AI API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Novita AI vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/novita-ai-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Novita AI vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/novita-ai-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [OpenAI API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [OpenAI API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [OpenRouter vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-sambanova.md)
- [OpenRouter vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Prism Inference vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prism-inference-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Prism Inference vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prism-inference-vs-sambanova.md)