Your GPUs shouldn't bill while your users sleep
An always-on deployment on Baseten pays for every idle minute.
The Best Baseten Alternative for Dedicated LLM Inference
On Baseten, every GPU minute is billed and your engineers keep it running.
On Featherless, you get a fully managed 1 TB node for a flat $7,500 a month.
Official Hugging Face inference provider
Backed by AMD Ventures- HIPAA (with BAA) and GDPR
Monthly cost, running 24/7
83%
less to run GLM 5.3
Baseten: GLM 5.3 needs 8x H200, $43,800 a month at list rates, running 24/7.
Featherless: $7,500.
5x
memory per dollar vs H200
Baseten 8x H200: 1.13 TB for $43,800.
Featherless: 1 TB for $7,500.
About 26 GB vs 137 GB per $1,000 a month.
40,000+
models on one API key
Why Teams Look for a Baseten Alternative
Teams switch from Baseten because idle GPUs still bill, big models need costly setups, your team runs the GPUs, and traffic spikes add billed replicas.
Running a big model shouldn't cost $43,800 a month
GLM 5.3 needs 8x H200 on Baseten to fit.
Your engineers shouldn't be your inference team
Your engineers handle Truss, GPU sizing, scaling and on-call.
A traffic spike shouldn't mean renting more GPUs
On Baseten, every extra replica bills at the full per-minute rate.
Featherless vs Baseten at a Glance
Baseten is an expensive option for always-on inference, because every GPU bills by the minute. Featherless runs a managed node for a flat monthly price.
| Item | | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing | Flat monthly | Per GPU-minute |
| Monthly price | $7,500 for a 1 TB node | $43,800 for 1.13 TB (8x H200, running 24/7) |
| Management | Fully managed. Our engineers deploy, tune, scale and monitor it | Self-serve. Your team packages it with Truss, configures it and monitors it |
| Scaling | Bursts to our shared pool of 40,000+ models, same API key | Adds replicas, each billed, up to your cap |
| Idle cost | Flat, always on | Scales to zero (can be cheaper for bursty traffic) |
| Best for | Steady traffic and large models | Bursty traffic and custom code |
You're paying Baseten nearly six times more, and doing the work yourself.
Featherless runs your model on a fully managed node for $7,500 a month.
Baseten vs Featherless Pricing for Dedicated Inference
For large models like GLM 5.3, running all day on dedicated GPUs, Featherless costs about a sixth of Baseten, with the engineers included.
| Model, running 24/7 | | |
|---|---|---|
| Llama 3.3 70B70B, about 81 GB in FP8 | $7,500 on a half node, or per token on our shared pool | $2,920 on 1x RTX PRO 6000, 96 GB |
| GLM 5.3753B, about 870 GB with KV cache | $7,500 on a half node, 1 TB | $43,800 on 8x H200, 1.13 TB |
| Engineers to run it | Included: deployment, tuning and on-call | Your team |
Baseten rates from baseten.co/pricing and its instance reference, checked 20 October 2026. Memory is the model's FP8 weights plus 15% for the KV cache.
Using Baseten's pay-per-token Model APIs instead? Compare our per-token prices
Is Featherless right for you?
Looking for a Baseten alternative? Our engineers handle the switch for you, in three simple steps.
- Your model gets steady traffic most of the day
- You need more than one GPU
- You don't want your engineers running GPUs
Thanks, we have it.
An engineer will reply to you within one business day.
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An engineer replies with your node price. No newsletter.
Featherless vs Baseten: Features Compared
A side-by-side look at Featherless as a Baseten alternative, on the features that decide how your model runs day to day.
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Throughput | Benchmarked on your model, then guaranteed | You choose a GPU, with no tokens-per-second promise |
| Tuning | Quantisation and batching set for your latency target | You configure it |
| Failover | Included, through our shared pool | A second replica, billed in full |
| Fine-tuning | On your traffic, so the node gets cheaper over time | Runs on the same per-minute GPUs |
| Hardware | AMD MI325X. Nvidia B300, B200 and H100 available | Nvidia, from T4 to B200 |
| Regions | US, EU and Southeast Asia | US and EU published |
New to AMD?
Each MI325X has 256 GB of memory, against 80 GB on an H100, so big models fit on fewer GPUs. When a model needs Nvidia, we run it on Nvidia.
Baseten vs Featherless: Which Should You Choose?
Choose Baseten for bursty traffic, custom code and scale to zero. Choose Featherless for models that run all day, at a flat price with engineers included.
Choose Baseten if:
- Your traffic is bursty or part-time
- Your model is small enough to run on one GPU
- You run custom code or non-LLM models packaged with Truss
- You need SOC 2 Type II today
Choose Featherless if:
- Your model serves traffic most of the day
- You run large open models like GLM 5.3
- You don't want your team handling Truss, autoscaling and on-call
- You want traffic spikes to burst to our shared pool on the same API key, not extra replicas billed by the minute
Switching From Baseten Is Simple
Your code stays as it is, and our engineers take care of everything from deployment to cutover.
You send the model
The Hugging Face ID and your daily traffic.
We get it running
Deployed and tuned on your node by our engineers.
Switch your URL
Change the URL and API key in your code.
Run the Numbers on Your Own Workload
Tell us your model, your traffic and what you spend on Baseten today. We'll size the node, confirm the price and benchmark your workload before you commit.
$7,500/month
- 1 TB managed node, 4x AMD MI325X
- Deployment, tuning and on-call by our engineers
- Full node and Nvidia priced on request
Thanks, we have it.
An engineer will reply to you within one business day.
Something went wrong. Please check the fields and try again.
Before You Switch From Baseten: Common Questions
What is the best Baseten alternative?
For open models served at steady volume, Featherless is the best-fit Baseten alternative: a reserved node of four AMD MI325X GPUs with 1 TB of GPU memory for $7,500 a month, run by our engineers. Baseten's 8x H200 costs $43,800 for 1.13 TB. If your traffic is bursty or your model is custom code, per-minute replicas like Baseten's remain the better fit.
What companies are similar to Baseten?
Teams comparing Baseten also look at Modal, Together AI, Fireworks AI, Replicate, RunPod and DeepInfra. Most bill GPU time or tokens by use. Featherless is the managed option: a reserved node at a flat monthly price, plus a 40,000-model shared pool on the same key. Each comparison is linked below.
Is Featherless cheaper than Baseten?
For large models running 24/7, yes. GLM 5.3 needs about 870 GB of GPU memory. On Baseten, the cheapest setup that fits it, 8x H200, costs $43,800 a month. On Featherless, it runs on a 1 TB node for $7,500, with our engineers included. For small models, like a 70B model on one RTX PRO 6000 at $2,920, Baseten is cheaper.
When is Baseten cheaper than Featherless?
When your hours are low. A 2x H100 deployment serving eight hours a day with scale to zero costs about $3,160 a month, which beats our node. The break-even sits near 20% of the hours on 8x H100 and 80% on 2x H100. Baseten also wins on self-serve provisioning in minutes, and it holds SOC 2 Type II.
What is Baseten's GPU pricing?
Baseten bills dedicated GPUs by the minute. An H100 costs $6.50 an hour, an H200 $7.50 and a B200 $9.98. Running GLM 5.3 all day takes 8x H200, which costs $43,800 a month. Rates from baseten.co, checked 20 October 2026.
Does Baseten charge for idle time?
Not if the deployment scales to zero: idle replicas cost nothing. But starting and loading a new replica is billable, and the first request after an idle spell waits for that cold start. If you keep a minimum replica warm to avoid the wait, you pay the full per-minute rate around the clock, busy or idle.
What does the $7,500 a month node include?
A reserved, isolated half node of four AMD MI325X GPUs with 1 TB of HBM3E, benchmarked on your workload before you commit. Our engineers tune the stack, choose quantisation and batching for your p95, fine-tune on your traffic over time and carry on-call. Overflow and failover go to the shared pool on the same key. It runs on an annual contract.
Do you support HIPAA, GDPR and SOC 2?
We support GDPR and HIPAA with a BAA, offer VPC or on-prem options, and run in US, EU and Southeast Asia regions. Baseten offers HIPAA and VPC too, so that part is parity. Baseten holds SOC 2 Type II. For Featherless's own SOC 2 status, ask an engineer before you sign.
How We Compared, and More Comparisons
Baseten rates are its published per-minute dedicated prices, checked 8 October 2026 and run over a 730-hour month. Featherless figures are the reserved 4x MI325X half node at $7,500 a month. Model sizes come from the Hugging Face repositories. Rates change, so check before you commit.
More comparisons
Sources
- Baseten pricing page
- Baseten docs: instance reference, autoscaling, regional deployments, Model APIs, security
- Baseten changelog: Model API retirements, 25 Sep 2026
- Pricepertoken: Baseten endpoint pricing (Oct 2026); Baseten free tier and credits; GLM 5.3 provider table
- Usagepricing: Baseten pricing history
- Artificial Analysis: Baseten provider page
- Hugging Face: GLM 5.3, Kimi K3
- Featherless: serverless LLM page, dedicated GPU page, about
- AI Provider Index: Featherless plans (Aug 2026)
