RunPod vs Vast.ai - GPU Provider Comparison (May 2026)
Head-to-head comparison of RunPod and Vast.ai. Compare GPU models, hourly pricing, billing granularity, spot instances, VRAM, infrastructure, developer tools, Kubernetes support, and compliance before choosing a provider. Data refreshed May 2026.
|
RunPod
The cloud built for AI — deploy and scale GPU workloads from serverless inference to instant multi-node clusters on demand.
|
Vast.ai
Instant GPUs. Transparent Pricing.
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Trustpilot Rating | 3.5 | 4.3 |
| Headquarters | United States | United States |
| Provider Type | GPU-Focused | GPU Marketplace |
| Best For | AI training inference fine-tuning Stable Diffusion batch processing rendering research LLM serving generative AI | AI training inference fine-tuning Stable Diffusion batch processing research LLM serving generative AI |
| GPU Hardware | ||
| GPU Models | B300 B200 H200 H100 SXM H100 PCIe H100 NVL MI300X A100 SXM A100 PCIe RTX 5090 RTX PRO 6000 L40S L40 RTX 6000 Ada RTX 5000 Ada RTX A6000 RTX A5000 RTX 4090 RTX 4080 SUPER RTX 4080 RTX 4070 Ti RTX 3090 Ti RTX 3090 RTX 3080 Ti RTX 3080 RTX 3070 A40 A30 A2 L4 | B200 H200 H100 SXM H100 NVL A100 SXM A100 PCIe RTX 5090 RTX 5080 RTX 5070 Ti RTX 6000 Pro RTX 6000 Ada RTX 4500 Ada RTX A6000 RTX A5000 RTX A4000 L40S L40 A40 A10 RTX 4090 RTX 4080 RTX 4070 Ti RTX 4070 RTX 4060 Ti RTX 4060 RTX 3090 Ti RTX 3090 RTX 3080 Ti RTX 3080 RTX 3070 Ti RTX 3070 Tesla V100 Tesla T4 A2 GTX 1080 |
| Max VRAM (GB) | 288 | 192 |
| Max GPUs/Instance | 8 | 8 |
| Interconnect | NVLink | NVLink, InfiniBand |
| Pricing | ||
| Starting Price ($/hr) | $0.06/hr | $0.06/hr |
| Billing Granularity | Per-second | Per-second |
| Spot/Preemptible | Yes | Yes |
| Reserved Discounts | 15-29% (1-month to 1-year plans) | Up to 50% (1-6 month reserved) |
| Free Credits | $5-$500 bonus after first $10 spend | Small test credit on signup |
| Egress Fees | None (Free) | Varies by host ($/TB) |
| Storage | Container/Volume ($0.10/GB/mo), Idle Volume ($0.20/GB/mo), Network Storage ($0.07/GB/mo 1TB) | Varies by host ($/GB/hr, charged while instance exists) |
| Infrastructure | ||
| Regions | 31 global regions | 500+ locations, 40+ data centers |
| Uptime SLA | 99.99% | No formal SLA (host reliability scores visible) |
| Developer Experience | ||
| Frameworks | PyTorch TensorFlow JAX ONNX CUDA | PyTorch TensorFlow CUDA vLLM ComfyUI |
| Docker Support | Yes | Yes |
| SSH Access | Yes | Yes |
| Jupyter Notebooks | Yes | Yes |
| API / CLI | Yes | Yes |
| Setup Time | Instant | Seconds |
| Kubernetes Support | No | No |
| Business Terms | ||
| Min Commitment | None | None |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II | SOC 2 Type 2 HIPAA GDPR CCPA |
RunPod
Vast.ai