Head to head · LLM inference · October 2026 research run
SambaCloud vs SWE-2 Flash
SambaCloud scores 64.9 (B) on agent readiness against SWE-2 Flash's 36.4 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do llm inference.
Best model APIs and inference for AI agents · All 562 models comparisons
Which one, for what
Best 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 50
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 29
- Agent ergonomics, 67 against 10
- Security & auth, 61 against 53
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 53
- Transparency & trust, 73 against 64
Also in its favour
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- 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
Best for People already using Devin Desktop or Devin CLI who want a cheaper, faster model for routine coding work such as automations, reviews and small changes, while it is free in November 2026.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No model API, OpenAPI entry or model card. The Devin API's session agents list SWE-2 but not SWE-2 Flash
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Agent ergonomics SambaCloud +57
SambaCloud 67
Model reading of the checklist (tool use, structured output, caching, context, batch, SDKs, errors). Function calling with tool_choice to force a function, on six listed models, and a July 2026 fix for tool calls that were buffered when streaming (17 of 20). json_object and json_schema output, best effort only, with a known failure on DeepSeek-V3.2 recorded in July 2026 (8 of 15). Automatic prompt caching on the MiniMax models only, with cached input on MiniMax-M3.1-Flash at a tenth of the input price on the 1 November pricing page, a 4,096-token minimum and no guaranteed persistence (10 of 15). 131,072-token context on four of six models, 1M on the MiniMax-M3 preview, and output capped at 7,168 tokens on DeepSeek and 3,072 on Llama 3.3 70B (8 of 15). No batch API found in the docs index or the OpenAPI document (0 of 10). Official SDKs for Python and TypeScript, and the OpenAI and Anthropic clients work with a changed base URL (10). Errors carry type, param, code and request_id (14 of 15).
SWE-2 Flash 10
Model reading (tool use, structured output, caching, context, batch, SDKs). Tool use is Devin's harness, not something a caller configures; no context length, output limit or cache price is published for SWE-2 Flash (5 of 25). No documented output-size or reasoning controls for this model; SWE-2's effort levels aren't stated for Flash (0 of 20). No model-level error documentation (0 of 20). No idempotency or retry guidance (0 of 20). One flag or picker selects it and devin -p runs a single turn and prints to stdout, but there is no SDK or direct endpoint (5 of 15). 5 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 5 = 10.
Schema & documentation SambaCloud +52
SambaCloud 81
Public OpenAPI 3.1.1 document, still labelled version 1.2.0 though its content changed on 27 October 2026, with 10 operations and 165 schemas (25). llms.txt at docs.sambanova.ai/docs/llms.txt and a Markdown copy of each page, per the 8 October check (docs.sambanova.ai answered robots.txt with a bot check on 1 November, so it wasn't read) (10). 718 descriptions in the document, with pages for function calling, Responses, Messages and caching. When not to use a route is rarely stated (15 of 20). Typed parameters with 150 enums, and request bodies now declare additionalProperties: false, but JSON schema output is best effort and strict: true has no effect (10 of 15). Code examples in Python and TypeScript, and an errors page with 13 codes and a recovery suggestion for each, per the 8 October check (13 of 15). The spec is versioned in its repository, but the version label didn't move with the 27 October changes, the newest SambaCloud release note seen is 7 July 2026, and the models page disagreed with /v1/models on 8 October (8 of 15). 25+10+15+10+13+8 = 81.
SWE-2 Flash 29
Model reading. No model API, so no OpenAPI entry; the Devin v3 OpenAPI file lists SWE-2 agents only, and no model card was found (0). docs.devin.ai serves llms.txt and Markdown copies of every page (10). The launch post says what it is for (automations, code review, feature development, documentation) and the CLI docs say when to pick a SWE model, but the models pages don't list SWE-2 Flash yet (6 of 20). No documented model ID, reasoning settings, context or output limits to type (0 of 15). The CLI pages show --model and /model examples, with no model-specific errors (3 of 15). Named, dated model versions on Cognition's blog and public release notes, but no release note for SWE-2 Flash yet; the newest is 2 November (10 of 15). 0 + 10 + 6 + 0 + 3 + 10 = 29.
Reliability SambaCloud +35
SambaCloud 85
Hosted reading. Status page at status.sambanova.ai on Statuspage, with components for the API gateway, the Playground and each model, read from the page itself on 1 November (20). Its history.atom feed, read on 1 November (the 8 October reading came from the /api/ path, which robots.txt disallows, and is struck), has nothing newer than an 8-minute Playground login fault on 25 June 2026, so nothing is posted for the window from 3 August (30). Limits published per model and tier, 20 requests a minute and 20 a day on the free tier, 60 and 12,000 on the Developer tier, per the 8 October check, not re-read on 1 November (15). x-ratelimit-* headers on every response, the error table says to retry queue_full after a delay, and the SDKs retry 429 and server errors twice with backoff, per the 8 October check. No Retry-After header was found in the docs or the OpenAPI document (10 of 15). No SLA found on the legal page, re-read on 1 November, or in the terms (0). Three production models are generally available, the rest previews, per the 8 October check (10). 20+30+15+10+0+10 = 85.
SWE-2 Flash 50
Model reading, for the surface it runs on, Devin Desktop and Devin CLI. Status page at www.devinstatus.com (Atlassian Statuspage) with Desktop Agent and Desktop Tab components besides the cloud ones, read on 4 November 2026 (20). The history feed for the 90 days from 6 August lists 'Devin unavailable' for 20 minutes on 13 August with no component named, read as across the board and a major as on the devin listing; Devin Cloud unavailable on 13 August and the web app down on 24 September name cloud surfaces this model doesn't use; the rest are degraded-performance incidents (new sessions on 3 September, 'multiple services' on 17 September, Ask Devin on 26 October, automation triggers on 4 November) and session queuing on 10 and 11 August, read as minor and a scheduled Devin Desktop extension marketplace upgrade on 7 August, read as maintenance. One major (10). No rate limit figures for the model or the CLI; usage is a daily and weekly quota with no numbers (0). No 429, backoff or retry guidance for this surface (0). Cognition publishes an SLA (25 February 2026) with uptime and response times that applies when included in an order form, read as a contractual SLA on Enterprise, as on other listings (10). The launch post makes it available today with no preview or beta label (10). 20 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 50.
Maintenance & community SambaCloud +24
SambaCloud 77
Model reading. The OpenAPI document and both SDKs (Python 1.14.0, TypeScript 1.11.0) were updated on 27 October 2026, adding MiniMax-M3.1-Flash, which is on the pricing page on 1 November (30). Production models get a notice of at least two to three weeks. The recorded removals to June had 14 days or less, and MiniMax-M2.7's removal from SambaCloud on 1 October was announced on 1 September (30 days), per the 27 October read of the deprecations page (5 of 12). One removal in the window from 3 August (MiniMax-M2.7) after 13 model ids left between 9 March and 9 June 2026 (4 of 8). The SambaCloud release notes stopped at 7 July 2026 on 8 October and couldn't be re-read. The community forum had staff replies, per the 8 October check (10 of 15). The Python SDK repository holds release pull requests only, so replies could not be judged (5 of 10). Python 1.14.0 and TypeScript 1.11.0, both 27 October 2026 (15). CI, release-please, a lock file and gitleaks scanning (8 of 10). 30+5+4+10+5+15+8 = 77.
SWE-2 Flash 53
Model reading. Released 4 November 2026 (30). Churn and notice in place of release counts: SWE-1.6, SWE-1.7, SWE-1.7 Lightning, SWE-2 (10 September) and now SWE-2 Flash in a few months, with no model deprecation notice period found and short names that move to the newest model (10 of 20). Public release notes and a support address, no public tracker (10 of 25). No official SDK for the model (0 of 15). The docs are kept current but don't yet cover this model (3 of 10). 30 + 10 + 10 + 0 + 3 = 53.
Payments & pricing SambaCloud +20
SambaCloud 40
No machine payment protocol (0). Per-token prices on the pricing page, read without a login on 1 November, such as gpt-oss-120b at $0.22 in and $0.59 out per 1M tokens (20). Free tier with no payment method, per the 8 October check (20). A person signs up in the console to get a key (0).
SWE-2 Flash 20
Published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices are public, but no per-token price for SWE-2 Flash is on a readable page; the docs' cost table loads in the browser and the post gives only 'one-fifth the price' of SWE-2 (10). Free through 30 November 2026 on Devin Desktop and CLI, but the docs say Free tier users only have SWE-1.6, so whether the Free plan reaches it, and without a card, isn't confirmed; the in-between value used on the devin listing (10). A person signs in through a browser (0). 0 + 10 + 10 + 0 = 20.
Transparency & trust SambaCloud +9
SambaCloud 73
Closed service with clear terms that name the entity and the governing law, and Apache-2.0 SDKs and OpenAPI document (15). The privacy policy is still dated 27 May 2023 and doesn't name SambaCloud or API inputs. A Data Processing Addendum, part of the Terms of Service, is now linked from the legal page (undated). It limits processing of customer personal data to the agreement, its Annex I says prompts, inputs and completions are processed transiently and kept no more than 30 days for security, fraud and abuse monitoring, then deleted, and it deletes customer personal data within 30 days of termination and from backups within 90. The product page's claim, re-read on 1 November, that SambaCloud 'never sees or collects any of your data or user prompts' sits beside that 30-day retention and terms that allow storing content and using query logs (16 of 30, as novita-ai's stated retention periods, below mistral-api's 18 where the DPA and other pages agree). A deprecations page with notice and removal dates back to April 2025, recording MiniMax-M2.7's 1 October removal with a 1 September notice per the 27 October read, though nothing for Mistral Large 3, per the 8 October check (14 of 20). The DPA's Annex III names 24 sub-processors with purpose and location (USA, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia) and promises 30 days' notice of changes, though it doesn't say where inference runs for a given request (18 of 20). 15+16+14+18 = 63.
SWE-2 Flash 64
Editorial half. Closed model under Cognition's platform terms; the weights aren't public and the sharing programme isn't described yet (15). Terms, privacy policy, security page and DPA agree, with training on self-serve data by default and no retention periods, as read for the devin listing (18). The API versioning policy covers API endpoints, not models, and no model deprecation notice was found (5 of 20). Sub-processors listed with purpose and country, per the devin listing's 8 October check (18). 15 + 18 + 5 + 18 = 56.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | SambaCloud | SWE-2 Flash | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 85 | 50 | SambaCloud +35 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 81 | 29 | SambaCloud +52 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 67 | 10 | SambaCloud +57 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 61 | 53 | SambaCloud +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 20 | SambaCloud +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 77 | 53 | SambaCloud +24 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 73 | 64 | SambaCloud +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -2 | |
| Total | B 64.9/100 | F 36.4/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | SambaCloud | SWE-2 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | SambaNova Systems, Inc. | Cognition AI, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.sambanova.ai/v1 | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the SambaCloud Terms of Service. The SDKs and the OpenAPI document are Apache-2.0 | Proprietary model, used through Devin Desktop and Devin CLI under Cognition's Platform Terms of Service. The weights are not public; Cognition says it is building a programme to share them with industry partners and researchers |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-27 | 2026-11-04 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-06-30 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2023-05-27 | 2026-03-09 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 2 stars, 76 npm/wk, 6.1k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
SWE-2 Flash
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
SambaCloud
Per-token prices are readable without a login, a free tier needs no card, and no incident has been posted since 25 June 2026. A Data Processing Addendum now names 24 sub-processors. Production models get two to three weeks' notice before removal, 13 model ids left between March and June 2026, and the product page's privacy claim contradicts the terms.
SWE-2 Flash
A new small coding model from Cognition that anyone can try free in Devin Desktop and Devin CLI until 30 November 2026, with strong vendor-reported coding scores. It has no model API, no published per-token price, context length or model card, and no public weights, so an agent can reach it only by driving Devin's own CLI.
Before you call either
SambaCloud
- Call
GET https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/modelsat start-up and use only ids it returns. The docs and status page have named models the API no longer serves - Read
x-ratelimit-remaining-requestsandx-ratelimit-remaining-requests-dayon every response. The free tier allows 20 requests a day per model - Treat 429
queue_fulland 503maintenanceas retryable after a delay, and 410model_deprecatedas a signal to change model - Validate JSON output yourself. Schema enforcement is best effort and
strict: truechanges nothing - Drop
do_samplebefore moving to Python SDK 1.14.0 or TypeScript 1.11.0. Those releases removed it
SWE-2 Flash
- There is no endpoint to call. Run Devin CLI single-turn with
devin -pand pick the model with--model; the SWE-2 Flash model ID isn't documented yet, so check/modelin the CLI first - Don't rely on the short name
swe. The docs say it resolves to the latest model in the family, which may be SWE-2 rather than SWE-2 Flash - Plan for billing to start on 1 December 2026. The free period covers Devin Desktop and CLI only, not Devin cloud sessions
- Treat Cognition's benchmark figures as the vendor's. No independent result for SWE-2 Flash was found
- Keep
credentials.tomlprivate. The token in it doesn't expire by default and carries the signed-in user's access
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, SambaCloud or SWE-2 Flash?
SambaCloud scores 64.9 (B) on agent readiness against SWE-2 Flash's 36.4 (F), and leads in every scored category.
Do SambaCloud and SWE-2 Flash need an API key?
SambaCloud needs an API key. SWE-2 Flash takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call SambaCloud and SWE-2 Flash without installing anything?
SambaCloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.sambanova.ai/v1. No hosted endpoint is listed for SWE-2 Flash.
Other comparisons with SambaCloud or SWE-2 Flash
- Claude API vs SambaCloud
- Claude API vs SWE-2 Flash
- Antseed vs SambaCloud
- Antseed vs SWE-2 Flash
- BlockRun.AI vs SambaCloud
- BlockRun.AI vs SWE-2 Flash
- Cerebras Inference vs SambaCloud
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- Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SambaCloud
- Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SWE-2 Flash
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs SambaCloud
- Cloudflare Workers AI vs SWE-2 Flash
- Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs SambaCloud
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- DeepInfra vs SambaCloud
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- DeepSeek API vs SambaCloud
- DeepSeek API vs SWE-2 Flash
- Glimpse vs SambaCloud
- Glimpse vs SWE-2 Flash
- Fireworks AI Inference vs SambaCloud
- Fireworks AI Inference vs SWE-2 Flash
- Gemini Developer API vs SambaCloud
- Gemini Developer API vs SWE-2 Flash
- GroqCloud vs SambaCloud
- GroqCloud vs SWE-2 Flash
- Jais 3 vs SambaCloud
- Jais 3 vs SWE-2 Flash
- Meta Model API vs SambaCloud
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- MiniMax API vs SambaCloud
- MiniMax API vs SWE-2 Flash
- Mistral AI API vs SambaCloud
- Mistral AI API vs SWE-2 Flash
- Muse Spark Open vs SambaCloud
- Muse Spark Open vs SWE-2 Flash
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs SWE-2 Flash
- Novita AI vs SambaCloud
- Novita AI vs SWE-2 Flash
- OpenAI API vs SambaCloud
- OpenAI API vs SWE-2 Flash
- OpenRouter vs SambaCloud
- OpenRouter vs SWE-2 Flash
- Prism Inference vs SWE-2 Flash
- Router.com (Ramp Router) vs SambaCloud
- Router.com (Ramp Router) vs SWE-2 Flash
- Beam 1.0 vs SambaCloud
- Beam 1.0 vs SWE-2 Flash
- RouterPlus vs SambaCloud
- RouterPlus vs SWE-2 Flash
- SambaCloud vs SiliconFlow
- SambaCloud vs Simplismart
- SambaCloud vs StepFun API
- SambaCloud vs Tencent Cloud TokenHub
- SambaCloud vs Together AI Inference
- SambaCloud vs Vercel AI Gateway
- SiliconFlow vs SWE-2 Flash
- Simplismart vs SWE-2 Flash
- StepFun API vs SWE-2 Flash
- SWE-2 Flash vs Tencent Cloud TokenHub
- SWE-2 Flash vs Together AI Inference
- SWE-2 Flash vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs SambaCloud
- Prism Inference vs SambaCloud
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/sambanova-vs-swe-2-flash.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/sambanova.json·/api/v1/tools/swe-2-flash.json - From a terminal
anchor compare sambanova swe-2-flash(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "sambanova", "b": "swe-2-flash"}at/mcp, no key