{"slug":"best-serverless-llm-inference-api","title":"Best serverless LLM inference API","question":"What are the best serverless LLM inference API?","verdict":"As of 2026-07-15, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok collectively rank Fireworks AI #1 for serverless llm inference api on ModelsAgree by aggregate score. The models' case: Best overall balance of fast, no-cold-start serving, strong open-model coverage, OpenAI-compatible APIs, prompt caching, batch discounts, fine-tuning, and a clean path to. The models' main caveat: Shared serverless latency can still vary, while priority and dedicated tiers materially increase cost. The strongest alternative is Together AI — The broadest production-grade catalog of open-weight models (Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, FLUX) behind one OpenAI-compatible API, with consistently. Not unanimous: Claude picks Together AI; Gemini picks Together AI; Grok picks Groq. Source: https://modelsagree.com/best/best-serverless-llm-inference-api (modelsagree.com, CC BY 4.0).","category":"Inference","url":"https://modelsagree.com/best/best-serverless-llm-inference-api","updated":"2026-07-15","models":["ChatGPT","Claude","Gemini","Grok"],"consensus":"1 of 4 models rank Fireworks AI the top pick","disagreement":"Claude picks Together AI; Gemini picks Together AI; Grok picks Groq","combined":[{"rank":1,"product":"Fireworks AI","domain":"fireworks.ai","score":17,"appearances":4,"modelRanks":{"ChatGPT":1,"Claude":2,"Gemini":2,"Grok":2},"reason":"Best overall balance of fast, no-cold-start serving, strong open-model coverage, OpenAI-compatible APIs, prompt caching, batch discounts, fine-tuning, and a clean path to higher-reliability or dedicated capacity; narrowly beats Together for production ergonomics."},{"rank":2,"product":"Together AI","domain":"together.ai","score":17,"appearances":4,"modelRanks":{"ChatGPT":2,"Claude":1,"Gemini":1,"Grok":3},"reason":"The broadest production-grade catalog of open-weight models (Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, FLUX) behind one OpenAI-compatible API, with consistently strong throughput, high rate limits, and a real growth path from pay-per-token to fine-tuning and dedicated endpoints — the safest default for a practitioner shipping on open models; assumes the typical user wants open-model breadth, not a single frontier model."},{"rank":3,"product":"Groq","domain":"groq.com","score":13,"appearances":4,"modelRanks":{"ChatGPT":3,"Claude":3,"Gemini":4,"Grok":1},"reason":"unmatched ultra-low latency and highest tokens/sec (500-1000+ tps on LPUs) with no cold starts for real-time apps like agents/voice"},{"rank":4,"product":"DeepInfra","domain":"deepinfra.com","score":9,"appearances":4,"modelRanks":{"ChatGPT":4,"Claude":4,"Gemini":3,"Grok":4},"reason":"The value champion offering the lowest pricing for standard open-weights models (like Llama and Qwen) while maintaining excellent throughput. Near-tied with Fireworks AI on speed metrics, but ranked lower due to fewer developer features."},{"rank":5,"product":"Amazon Bedrock","domain":"amazon.com","score":1,"appearances":1,"modelRanks":{"Claude":5},"reason":"True serverless pay-per-token access to frontier commercial models (Claude, plus Meta/Mistral/Amazon models) with IAM, VPC endpoints, guardrails, and compliance baked in — the practical choice when the practitioner sits inside an AWS-governed enterprise; ranked on the assumption that \"serverless inference\" includes managed frontier-model APIs, not just open-weight hosts."},{"rank":6,"product":"Cerebras","domain":"cerebras.ai","score":1,"appearances":1,"modelRanks":{"ChatGPT":5},"reason":"Class-leading inference speed and very high throughput can transform coding agents, search, and other sequential workloads where each generation blocks the next; it is a near-tie with Groq when raw latency dominates."},{"rank":7,"product":"OpenRouter","domain":"openrouter.ai","score":1,"appearances":1,"modelRanks":{"Gemini":5},"reason":"Highly practical proxy aggregator that simplifies developer workflows by providing unified billing, automatic fallback routing, and access to dozens of underlying serverless providers via a single API key."},{"rank":8,"product":"SiliconFlow","domain":"siliconflow.com","score":1,"appearances":1,"modelRanks":{"Grok":5},"reason":"superior price-to-performance with 2x+ faster inference and lower latency than many peers, strong all-in-one serverless for open models"}],"perModel":{"ChatGPT":[{"rank":1,"product":"Fireworks AI","reason":"Best overall balance of fast, no-cold-start serving, strong open-model coverage, OpenAI-compatible APIs, prompt caching, batch discounts, fine-tuning, and a clean path to higher-reliability or dedicated capacity; narrowly beats Together for production ergonomics.","fix":"Shared serverless latency can still vary, while priority and dedicated tiers materially increase cost."},{"rank":2,"product":"Together AI","reason":"Near-tie for first with broad, rapidly updated multimodal model coverage, competitive throughput and pricing, automatic cached-input discounts, batch inference, Serverless LoRA, and easy migration to dedicated deployments.","fix":"Its very broad catalog has uneven model-specific performance, so serious workloads require benchmarking rather than trusting platform-wide speed claims."},{"rank":3,"product":"Groq","reason":"Exceptional token-generation speed and low latency on supported models, straightforward OpenAI-compatible integration, competitive token pricing, and discounted batch processing make it the strongest choice for latency-sensitive interactive applications.","fix":"The curated model catalog and hardware-specific support are substantially narrower than Fireworks or Together, limiting model choice and customization."},{"rank":4,"product":"DeepInfra","reason":"Excellent price-to-performance, broad open-model selection, simple pay-as-you-go OpenAI-compatible APIs, embeddings and rerankers, and low operational friction make it especially compelling for cost-conscious applications.","fix":"It offers fewer production-control, capacity-guarantee, and enterprise deployment options than the top two."},{"rank":5,"product":"Cerebras","reason":"Class-leading inference speed and very high throughput can transform coding agents, search, and other sequential workloads where each generation blocks the next; it is a near-tie with Groq when raw latency dominates.","fix":"Its relatively small supported-model catalog makes it unsuitable when breadth, custom models, or multimodal coverage matters more than speed."}],"Claude":[{"rank":1,"product":"Together AI","reason":"The broadest production-grade catalog of open-weight models (Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, FLUX) behind one OpenAI-compatible API, with consistently strong throughput, high rate limits, and a real growth path from pay-per-token to fine-tuning and dedicated endpoints — the safest default for a practitioner shipping on open models; assumes the typical user wants open-model breadth, not a single frontier model.","fix":"Neither the cheapest per token (DeepInfra undercuts it) nor the fastest (Groq/Cerebras beat it on latency), so pure cost- or speed-maximizers should look elsewhere."},{"rank":2,"product":"Fireworks AI","reason":"Fastest to serve new open models day-one, excellent latency via its custom serving stack, and the best developer surface for production apps — reliable function calling, structured/JSON output, grammar mode, plus SOC 2/HIPAA compliance that matters once a prototype becomes a product; near-tie with Together, edged out only on catalog breadth.","fix":"Smaller model selection than Together or DeepInfra, and pricing sits at a premium over budget hosts — not the pick for cost-driven batch workloads."},{"rank":3,"product":"Groq","reason":"LPU hardware delivers hundreds of tokens/sec at low per-token prices, making it the clear winner for latency-critical UX (voice agents, real-time chat, agent loops) where time-to-final-token dominates the experience.","fix":"A narrow, slow-moving model menu with no custom-model or fine-tuned deployment support, plus capacity/rate-limit constraints at scale — unusable if your model isn't on their list."},{"rank":4,"product":"DeepInfra","reason":"Consistently the lowest per-token prices on a wide open-model catalog with a no-friction OpenAI-compatible API — the best value pick for cost-sensitive, high-volume workloads like batch processing, embeddings, and classification.","fix":"Latency and throughput are less consistent than Fireworks/Together and the enterprise feature set (compliance, SLAs, dedicated capacity options) is thinner — not for latency-sensitive production frontends."},{"rank":5,"product":"Amazon Bedrock","reason":"True serverless pay-per-token access to frontier commercial models (Claude, plus Meta/Mistral/Amazon models) with IAM, VPC endpoints, guardrails, and compliance baked in — the practical choice when the practitioner sits inside an AWS-governed enterprise; ranked on the assumption that \"serverless inference\" includes managed frontier-model APIs, not just open-weight hosts.","fix":"Higher prices, laggy availability of new models, and AWS-grade configuration overhead — painful for indie developers who just want an API key."}],"Gemini":[{"rank":1,"product":"Together AI","reason":"Unmatched breadth in its open-weight model catalog, highly reliable serverless endpoints with OpenAI compatibility, and seamless paths for custom fine-tuning. It serves as the primary benchmark for developer-friendly prototyping.","fix":"Higher Time to First Token (TTFT) latency compared to hardware-optimized competitors like Groq, and scaling custom models requires expensive dedicated endpoints."},{"rank":2,"product":"Fireworks AI","reason":"Engineered for production agent architectures with outstanding support for structured JSON generation, fast tool-calling performance, and custom LoRA hosting.","fix":"Curated model list is narrower than Together AI, and pricing is higher compared to budget-focused providers."},{"rank":3,"product":"DeepInfra","reason":"The value champion offering the lowest pricing for standard open-weights models (like Llama and Qwen) while maintaining excellent throughput. Near-tied with Fireworks AI on speed metrics, but ranked lower due to fewer developer features.","fix":"Lacks advanced agentic tooling, structured output optimizations, or robust fine-tuning options, making it unsuitable for highly customized agent pipelines."},{"rank":4,"product":"Groq","reason":"Delivers unmatched, class-leading inference speeds and sub-second Time to First Token (TTFT) using custom LPU hardware, making it essential for conversational voice applications.","fix":"High rate limits and restricted context windows make it unsuitable for high-volume document processing or long-context RAG applications."},{"rank":5,"product":"OpenRouter","reason":"Highly practical proxy aggregator that simplifies developer workflows by providing unified billing, automatic fallback routing, and access to dozens of underlying serverless providers via a single API key.","fix":"Adds an extra network hop of latency and does not allow native developer integration with provider-specific custom model endpoints."}],"Grok":[{"rank":1,"product":"Groq","reason":"unmatched ultra-low latency and highest tokens/sec (500-1000+ tps on LPUs) with no cold starts for real-time apps like agents/voice","fix":"dramatically expand model catalog beyond narrow selection of optimized models"},{"rank":2,"product":"Fireworks AI","reason":"blazing serverless speed via FireAttention engine, day-0 new model support, strong multimodal/fine-tuning/production features with clean API","fix":"lower per-token pricing to compete better at high volume"},{"rank":3,"product":"Together AI","reason":"broadest open model catalog (200+), excellent fine-tuning + serverless inference, strong performance and reliability for production scale","fix":"simplify billing and reduce complexity for easier high-volume use"},{"rank":4,"product":"DeepInfra","reason":"best cost-efficiency with low per-token rates, reliable serverless scaling, solid model selection for budget-conscious production workloads","fix":"improve raw speed and TTFT to match leaders for latency-sensitive use cases"},{"rank":5,"product":"SiliconFlow","reason":"superior price-to-performance with 2x+ faster inference and lower latency than many peers, strong all-in-one serverless for open models","fix":"enhance global availability and enterprise compliance features"}]},"missedByModel":{"ChatGPT":[{"product":"Cloudflare Workers AI","reason":"excellent edge integration and developer value, but weaker model breadth and inference specialization than the leaders"},{"product":"Baseten","reason":"strong production platform for custom-model deployment, but less compelling for practitioners seeking a broad, inexpensive shared serverless model catalog"}],"Claude":[{"product":"Cerebras","reason":"record-setting tokens/sec that beats even Groq, but the model catalog and available capacity are too thin to serve as a primary provider"}],"Gemini":[{"product":"Nebius AI","reason":"offers excellent GPU infrastructure and very competitive pricing, but has a smaller track record in serverless model offerings compared to the established giants"},{"product":"Cloudflare Workers AI","reason":"highly convenient for developers embedded in the Cloudflare edge ecosystem, but limited by a very restrictive model selection and low rate-limit ceilings"}],"Grok":[{"product":"Modal","reason":"great Python-native serverless GPUs but requires more custom code/setup than pure APIs"},{"product":"Replicate","reason":"easy for open models but less optimized speed/cost at scale"}]}}