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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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.