# SambaCloud vs Vercel AI Gateway

> Vercel AI Gateway and SambaCloud score within a point of each other for llm inference, 66.7 and 66.4 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

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.

- SambaCloud: grade B, 66.4/100, rank #321 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sambanova.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sambanova.json
- Vercel AI Gateway: grade B, 66.7/100, rank #302 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vercel-ai-gateway.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vercel-ai-gateway.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 326 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 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)

Good 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

| Category | Weight | SambaCloud | Vercel AI Gateway | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 85 | 74 | SambaCloud +11 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 74 | SambaCloud +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 83 | Vercel AI Gateway +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 20 | SambaCloud +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 70 | Vercel AI Gateway +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **66.4 · B** | **66.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | SambaCloud | Vercel AI Gateway |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model router |
| Vendor | SambaNova Systems, Inc. | Vercel Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.sambanova.ai/v1` | `https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or 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 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 documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-17 | 2026-10-17 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2023-05-27 | 2026-06-01 |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| 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 | 29.6M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (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.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with SambaCloud or Vercel AI Gateway

- [Claude API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Claude API vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
- [Antseed vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-sambanova.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-sambanova.md)
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- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-sambanova.md)
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- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-sambanova.md)
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- [DeepSeek API vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-sambanova.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
- [Glimpse vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elorian-glimpse-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Glimpse vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elorian-glimpse-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
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- [Gemini Developer API vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
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- [GroqCloud vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
- [Jais 3 vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jais-3-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Jais 3 vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jais-3-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
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