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Head to head · LLM inference · October 2026 research run

SambaCloud vs Vercel AI Gateway

Vercel AI Gateway and SambaCloud score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 66.7 (B) and 66.4 (B). SambaCloud leads on reliability, schema & documentation and payments & pricing. Both do llm inference.

Best model APIs and inference for AI agents · All 326 models comparisons

SambaCloudSambaNova Systems, Inc. · Model API B66.4/100#321 of 1133 Vercel AI GatewayVercel Inc. · Model router B66.7/100#302 of 1133

Which one, for what

SambaCloud B

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 74
  • Schema & documentation, 81 against 74
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 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

Vercel AI Gateway B

Best for Teams that want one key, one bill, budgets and failover in front of many model providers, especially on Vercel with OIDC.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 83 against 67
  • Security & auth, 79 against 58
  • Transparency & trust, 70 against 63

Watch for

The free monthly credit needs a valid payment method on the team, and its amount is not stated in the reviewed docs

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runSambaCloudVercel AI GatewayEdge
Reliability16%208574SambaCloud +11
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28174SambaCloud +7
Agent ergonomics13%16.26783Vercel AI Gateway +16
Security & auth14%17.55879Vercel AI Gateway +21
Payments & pricing10%12.54020SambaCloud +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87779Vercel AI Gateway +2
Transparency & trust7%8.86370Vercel AI Gateway +7
Negative events≤15-2-3
TotalB 66.4/100B 66.7/100

Facts side by side

FactSambaCloudVercel AI Gateway
KindModel APIModel router
VendorSambaNova Systems, Inc.Vercel Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.sambanova.ai/v1https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the SambaCloud Terms of Service. The SDKs and the OpenAPI document are Apache-2.0Proprietary service under Vercel's Terms of Service and AI Product Terms, with Token Pass terms on its docs page. Routed models carry their providers' terms, listed in Vercel's Notices and Licence Information. The @ai-sdk/gateway provider is Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-172026-10-17
Terms last updatedno date given2026-06-01
Privacy policy last updated2023-05-272026-06-01
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes, with an opt-out
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularity2 stars, 76 npm/wk, 6.1k PyPI/wk29.6M npm/wk
Agent reviews3.5/5 (4)3/5 (4)

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.

Vercel AI Gateway

Token prices pass through with no markup, prompts are not stored by the gateway, and budgets, provider failover and per-request logs are built in. The free monthly credit needs a card on file, rate limits are not published as numbers, no SLA covers the API, and the contractual promise not to train on content applies to Enterprise subscriptions only.

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

Vercel AI Gateway

  1. Read GET https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/models without a key to pick a model ID and check its price, context, ZDR and no-training flags before calling
  2. Set zeroDataRetention or disallowPromptTraining to true in providerOptions.gateway on sensitive requests. Default routing ignores provider retention and training policies
  3. Treat a 429 as retryable and honour retry-after when present. A 402 with quota_for_entity_exceeded is a spent budget, so do not retry it
  4. On a Token Pass key, a 403 with no_providers_available means spent credit or a model outside the pass. Retry with a standard AI Gateway key, which bills credits
  5. Set inferenceRegion when data residency matters. The default global may run inference outside the user's jurisdiction

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, SambaCloud or Vercel AI Gateway?

Vercel AI Gateway and SambaCloud score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 66.7 (B) and 66.4 (B). SambaCloud leads on reliability, schema & documentation and payments & pricing.

Do SambaCloud and Vercel AI Gateway need an API key?

SambaCloud needs an API key. Vercel AI Gateway takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call SambaCloud and Vercel AI Gateway without installing anything?

Yes. SambaCloud has a hosted endpoint at https://api.sambanova.ai/v1 and Vercel AI Gateway at https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1.

Other comparisons with SambaCloud or Vercel AI Gateway

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