# Thunder Compute vs Vast.ai (slim)

> Vast.ai scores 62.6 (B) on agent readiness against Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do compute gpu. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/thunder-compute-vs-vast-ai.md (~2,550 tokens) · this version ~630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/thunder-compute-vs-vast-ai.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/thunder-compute-vs-vast-ai
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

Vast.ai scores 62.6 (B) on agent readiness against Thunder Compute's 56.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do compute gpu.

- Thunder Compute: C 56.1, rank #576 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/thunder-compute.min.md
- Vast.ai: B 62.6, rank #384 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vast-ai.min.md
- Thunder Compute, good for Agents in coding tools that rent a single persistent GPU machine for development, fine-tuning or a model server, at low hourly prices and over MCP.
- Vast.ai, good for Cost-sensitive training, batch work and self-managed inference where the agent can search listings, set a price cap and tolerate host variance or interruption. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 78 against 70; Agent ergonomics, 57 against 48; Security & auth, 72 against 51.

| Category | Thunder Compute | Vast.ai |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 65 | 65 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 70 | 78 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 48 | 57 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 51 | 72 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 20 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 79 | 81 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 64 | 62 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Thunder Compute | Vast.ai |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Thunder Compute | Vast.ai Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.thundercompute.com:8443/v1` | `https://console.vast.ai/api/v0` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Price for compute gpu | $0.219 per GB per month | not published |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Thunder Compute's Terms and Conditions. The `tnr` CLI on GitHub is MIT | Proprietary service under Vast.ai's Terms of Use Agreement. The `vastai` CLI and Python SDK on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 28 | none |
| MCP registry | `io.github.Thunder-Compute/thunder-compute` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-16 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-28 | 2025-06-18 |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 34 stars | 223 stars, 33k PyPI/wk |