# Arrakis compared with other GPU clouds

How renting through Arrakis differs from RunPod, Vast.ai, Lambda, Modal, fal.ai and Replicate: price, billing, root access, model serving and what an AI agent can do on its own. Each page says where the other provider fits better.

## Three kinds of GPU service

As of 31 Oct 2026, 17:40 UTC, the lowest price for the NVIDIA B300 on Arrakis is $4.60 per GPU-hour, with 73 GPUs available on 10 machines.

| | Arrakis | A GPU cloud | A per-request model API |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the GPU comes from | Every independent market Arrakis connects, searched at once | That cloud's own fleet | The API's fleet, out of sight |
| What you pay | The lowest live price across markets, per GPU-hour | The cloud's own price, per hour, minute or second | Per picture, second or token |
| Your own model and options | Any Hugging Face model, any engine options | Yes, on a machine you set up | The models and settings it offers |
| Root SSH | Yes | Usually | No |
| For AI agents | A spend cap per token, a removal time on every rental, MCP | Varies by cloud | Varies by API |
| Fits best | Training, evals and model servers you control, for hours to months | Long runs that need one provider's support and SLA | A few requests a day, with nothing to run |

## One by one

Facts about other providers come from their own pages, checked on October 31, 2026. Prices and features change: check them before you choose. Arrakis is not affiliated with them.

| Comparison | Best known for | Billing | B300 per GPU-hour | MCP server |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Arrakis vs RunPod](/compare/runpod.html.md) | GPU pods and serverless endpoints, in data-center and community tiers | Per second | $6.94 (Community Cloud); $8.99 on Secure Cloud | Yes, official: manages pods and serverless |
| [Arrakis vs Vast.ai](/compare/vast-ai.html.md) | A marketplace of independent GPU hosts, priced by supply and demand | Per second | Varies: from $9.94, median $15.00 | No official server: an agent skill and plugins |
| [Arrakis vs Lambda](/compare/lambda.html.md) | On-demand H100 and B200 virtual machines and GPU clusters | Per minute | Not listed: B300 only on contracts of 3 years or more | No official server found |
| [Arrakis vs Modal](/compare/modal.html.md) | Serverless Python functions on GPUs that scale to zero | Per second, scaling to zero | $7.10 ($0.001972 a second) | No official server: agent skills |
| [Arrakis vs fal.ai](/compare/fal-ai.html.md) | Hosted image, video and audio model APIs, plus serverless GPUs | Per second on Serverless; per output for model APIs | $12.99 list on Serverless (as low as $5.99) | Yes: runs models, doesn't rent GPUs |
| [Arrakis vs Replicate](/compare/replicate.html.md) | An API for running thousands of open models | Per second; many models per output | Not listed: its price list stops at the H200 | Yes: runs models, doesn't rent GPUs |

## Questions about choosing a GPU cloud

**Which GPU cloud is cheapest?** It changes by the hour. Arrakis searches several independent GPU markets at once and lists the cheapest machines first, so its price is the lowest it can find right now; a single cloud's list price is fixed until it changes it. Compare the live prices on the GPU prices page with a provider's own page before you rent.

**Which GPU cloud is best for AI agents?** One where an agent can rent without being able to overspend. Arrakis gives each agent token a spend cap, requires a removal time on every rental, makes retries safe and serves it all over MCP. Check whether a provider offers the same before you hand an agent its key.

**When is a serverless or per-request service the better choice?** When you send a few requests a day, want nothing running between them, or want a hosted model with no setup. A GPU of your own pays off once it is busy for hours, or when you need your own model, engine options or root access.