# Anthropic vs Dolphin

> Anthropic sells closed frontier models through every major cloud. Dolphin serves an open model on a decentralized network and builds models without refusals.

Canonical: https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/anthropic-vs-dolphin · By The Subconscious Team · Updated October 11, 2026

## How they compare

Claude covers Fable 5.1 through Haiku 5.5 at $0.10 to $10 in and $0.50 to $50 out, with 1M context and batch at 50% off, sold through Anthropic's API, Bedrock, Vertex AI and Microsoft Foundry. Its safety classifiers can reroute some cybersecurity or biology requests to a lower tier. Dolphin's API launched in October 2026 with one model, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, at $0.01 in and $0.07 out per million, served on idle consumer GPUs. It publishes no speed, context or SLA.

These rarely compete for the same job. Anthropic is the choice for agentic coding, long agent runs and enterprise procurement. Dolphin fits very cheap background calls and products that need a model to follow the system prompt without vendor refusals, if the team can sign up with a crypto wallet and Telegram.

## What each one does

### Anthropic

Anthropic sells the Claude family of closed models through its own API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex AI and Microsoft Foundry. The public lineup today runs from Claude Fable 5.1 at the top, released September 1, 2026, through Opus 5.5 ($4 in, $20 out) and Sonnet 5.5 ($2 in, $10 out) down to Haiku 5.5. List prices span a hundredfold range, from $10 in and $50 out on Fable to $0.10 in and $0.50 out on Haiku. All four tiers have a 1M token context window. The top three bill it at standard pricing, while Haiku 5.5 charges more past 100K.

### Dolphin

Dolphin began in 2023 as Eric Hartford's series of open-source, uncensored fine-tunes, trained to drop the refusals and baked-in guidelines of their base models so that the developer sets the rules through the system prompt. Current releases include Dolphin Llama 3.1 8B and Dolphin Mistral 24B Venice Edition, built with Venice, and the project publishes nearly 100 models on Hugging Face. It also runs a chat app, a Telegram bot and a synthetic data service that generates answers to commonly refused prompts.

## Which is best, and when

### Choose Anthropic for

- Agentic coding and long agent runs
- 1M context with cheap cache reads
- Procurement through any major cloud

### Choose Dolphin for

- Very cheap background calls
- Models without vendor-imposed refusals
- Teams fine with crypto wallet signup

## At a glance

| Attribute | Anthropic | Dolphin |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Closed | Open weights, uncensored fine-tunes |
| Flagship models | Claude Fable 5.1, Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5, Haiku 5.5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Dolphin Mistral 24B |
| Speed | Fable is the slowest tier | - |
| Price | $0.10–$10 in, $0.50–$50 out per 1M | $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash) |
| Customization | N/A | Own uncensored fine-tunes |
| Deployment | API, Bedrock, Vertex AI, Microsoft Foundry | Decentralized serverless API |
| Long context | 1M; Haiku 5.5 costs more past 100K | - |

## FAQ

### What is the difference between Anthropic and Dolphin?

Anthropic sells closed frontier models through every major cloud. Dolphin serves an open model on a decentralized network and builds models without refusals.

### When should I choose Anthropic over Dolphin?

Agentic coding and long agent runs; 1M context with cheap cache reads; Procurement through any major cloud.

### When should I choose Dolphin over Anthropic?

Very cheap background calls; Models without vendor-imposed refusals; Teams fine with crypto wallet signup.

### Is Anthropic or Dolphin cheaper?

Anthropic: $0.10–$10 in, $0.50–$50 out per 1M. Dolphin: $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash). The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.

## Running long-horizon agents?

If your agents run past 200K tokens, compare both against Subconscious: [Subconscious vs Anthropic](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-anthropic.md), [Subconscious vs Dolphin](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-dolphin.md).

Full profiles: [Anthropic](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/anthropic.md), [Dolphin](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/dolphin.md).