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Anthropic vs Groq
Groq trades catalog and context for raw speed on its LPU chip. Anthropic trades speed for Claude's coding depth and a 1M window. They rarely compete for the same step.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Anthropic vs Groq: key differences
Groq serves a small set of open models on custom silicon and publishes 500 tokens per second on GPT-OSS 120B and 1,000 on GPT-OSS 20B, with tight tail latency that suits strict SLAs. Its context caps around 131K, it hosts no fine-tuned models, and Llama 3.3 70B and Llama 3.1 8B shut down in August 2026. Anthropic sits at the opposite pole. Fable 5.1 is the slowest tier in its own lineup because it always thinks, but Claude leads on real-world coding benchmarks and the top tiers carry 1M context with no premium past 200K.
Voice agents and multi-call loops where every step must return fast are Groq's ground, and its small-model prices sit near the market floor with stacking cache and Batch discounts. Long repository work, research agents and anything that needs more than 131K tokens of context belongs with Claude. A practical pattern is to route quick classification or formatting steps to Groq and keep planning and code generation on Claude. Worth weighing too: GroqCloud's long-term roadmap is an open question after NVIDIA hired most of its engineers.
What Anthropic and Groq do
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 the Opus and Sonnet tiers down to Haiku 4.5. List prices span a tenfold range, from $10 in and $50 out on Fable to $1 in and $5 out on Haiku. The top three tiers include a 1M token context window at standard pricing with no surcharge past 200K.
Example models: Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Haiku 4.5
Full Anthropic profileGroq
Groq serves open models on its own chip, the LPU, which keeps model weights in on-chip SRAM and runs a deterministic schedule instead of waiting on GPU memory. Groq publishes 1,000 tokens per second on GPT-OSS 20B and 500 on GPT-OSS 120B. Latency stays tight between median and tail, which matters for strict SLAs. The API is OpenAI-compatible and also hosts Whisper for speech to text plus an agentic system called Groq Compound with built-in search and code execution.
Example models: GPT-OSS 120B, Qwen 3.6 27B
Full Groq profileShould you choose Anthropic or Groq?
Anthropic
Choose Anthropic for
- Tasks that need more than 131K tokens of context
- Deep coding and multi-step research where quality beats speed
- Buyers who want the model on every major cloud
Groq
Choose Groq for
- Voice agents where any pause is noticeable
- Fast, cheap intermediate steps in a multi-call loop
- Strict SLAs that depend on predictable tail latency
Anthropic vs Groq at a glance
| Attribute | Anthropic | Groq |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Closed | Open weights |
| Flagship models | Claude Fable 5.1, Opus, Sonnet, Haiku 4.5 | GPT-OSS 120B, Qwen 3.6 27B |
| Speed | Fable is the slowest tier | 500–1,000 tok/s |
| Price | $1–$10 in, $5–$50 out per 1M | Near the floor on small models |
| Customization | N/A | No fine-tuned model hosting |
| Deployment | API, Bedrock, Vertex AI, Microsoft Foundry | GroqCloud API |
| Long context | 1M, no surcharge past 200K | Around 131K max |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Anthropic and Groq?
Groq trades catalog and context for raw speed on its LPU chip. Anthropic trades speed for Claude's coding depth and a 1M window. They rarely compete for the same step.
When should I choose Anthropic over Groq?
Tasks that need more than 131K tokens of context; Deep coding and multi-step research where quality beats speed; Buyers who want the model on every major cloud.
When should I choose Groq over Anthropic?
Voice agents where any pause is noticeable; Fast, cheap intermediate steps in a multi-call loop; Strict SLAs that depend on predictable tail latency.
Is Anthropic or Groq cheaper?
Anthropic: $1–$10 in, $5–$50 out per 1M. Groq: Near the floor on small models. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Anthropic or Groq?
Anthropic: 1M, no surcharge past 200K. Groq: Around 131K max.
Related comparisons
Running long-horizon agents?
If your agents run past 200K tokens, compare both against Subconscious. Our inference stack treats a long-horizon trace as the primary workload, so speed, cost, and accuracy hold up deep into the trace.