# Cloudflare Workers AI vs Relace

> Relace trains small tool models for coding agents: apply, search and compaction. Workers AI serves the general open LLMs that sit at the center of those agents.

Canonical: https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-relace · By The Subconscious Team · Updated September 30, 2026

## How they compare

Relace's relace-apply-3 merges lazy edit snippets into files at about 10,000 tokens per second with 128K tokens of input and output, and Relace says this beats a full rewrite by more than 3x on speed and cost. Its agentic search explores large codebases in parallel, and a compaction model runs at 50,000 tokens per second. Past 128K, the apply model returns an error, so very large files need a fallback. Workers AI can supply that fallback or the main model, with DeepSeek V4 at 1M tokens, Kimi K2.7 Code at 262K, and GLM 5.3.

Deployment points to different buyers. Relace offers self-hosted deployment for enterprises that keep code in-house, which Workers AI does not, since Cloudflare runs every model on its own network with no dedicated option for large LLMs. Workers AI gives serverless access with a free daily tier, OpenAI-compatible endpoints and AI Gateway for fallbacks across providers. Neither replaces the other: Relace has no general-purpose serving, and Workers AI has no specialized apply or search models.

## What each one does

### Cloudflare Workers AI

Workers AI is the serverless GPU inference service of Cloudflare, which was founded in 2009. It launched in September 2023 and reached general availability in April 2024. Models run on GPUs inside Cloudflare's own network and are called from a Worker through an AI binding or over REST, including OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions and Embeddings endpoints plus a Responses endpoint for gpt-oss. The catalog lists 50+ open models. Since Kimi K2.5 arrived in March 2026 it has carried frontier-scale LLMs: Kimi K2.6 and K2.7 Code, GLM 5.2 and 5.3, DeepSeek V4 Pro and Flash, gpt-oss 120B and 20B, Qwen 3.8 27B and Llama 4 Scout. DeepSeek V4, added August 14, 2026, was the first to offer the full 1,048,576 token context.

### Relace

Relace trains small, fast models that act as tools for coding agents. Its best-known product is Instant Apply: a frontier model writes a lazy edit snippet, and relace-apply-3 merges it into the original file at about 10,000 tokens per second with 128K tokens of input and output. Relace says this runs over 3x faster and cheaper than having the big model rewrite the file. It exposes both a REST endpoint and an OpenAI-compatible one, and the model is also listed on OpenRouter.

## Which is best, and when

### Choose Cloudflare Workers AI for

- General LLM serving for agent reasoning
- Contexts beyond 128K on DeepSeek V4
- Apps built on Cloudflare Workers

### Choose Relace for

- Instant apply inside app builders
- Parallel search across large repos
- Self-hosted coding tools that keep code in-house

## At a glance

| Attribute | Cloudflare Workers AI | Relace |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Specialist models |
| Flagship models | DeepSeek V4 Pro, GLM 5.3, Kimi K2.7 Code, gpt-oss 120B | relace-apply-3, agentic search |
| Speed | - | ~10,000 tok/s apply |
| Price | $0.011 per 1K Neurons; 10K free daily | 3x+ cheaper than full rewrites |
| Customization | BYO LoRA on small models (beta) | - |
| Deployment | Serverless on Cloudflare network | Hosted API or self-hosted |
| Long context | 1M on DeepSeek V4; 262K on Kimi | 128K max |

## FAQ

### What is the difference between Cloudflare Workers AI and Relace?

Relace trains small tool models for coding agents: apply, search and compaction. Workers AI serves the general open LLMs that sit at the center of those agents.

### When should I choose Cloudflare Workers AI over Relace?

General LLM serving for agent reasoning; Contexts beyond 128K on DeepSeek V4; Apps built on Cloudflare Workers.

### When should I choose Relace over Cloudflare Workers AI?

Instant apply inside app builders; Parallel search across large repos; Self-hosted coding tools that keep code in-house.

### Is Cloudflare Workers AI or Relace cheaper?

Cloudflare Workers AI: $0.011 per 1K Neurons; 10K free daily. Relace: 3x+ cheaper than full rewrites. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.

### Which has more context, Cloudflare Workers AI or Relace?

Cloudflare Workers AI: 1M on DeepSeek V4; 262K on Kimi. Relace: 128K max.

## Running long-horizon agents?

If your agents run past 200K tokens, compare both against Subconscious: [Subconscious vs Cloudflare Workers AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-cloudflare-workers-ai.md), [Subconscious vs Relace](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-relace.md).

Full profiles: [Cloudflare Workers AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/cloudflare-workers-ai.md), [Relace](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/relace.md).