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Crusoe vs Novita AI
Novita AI wins on breadth and floor prices across 200+ models. Crusoe runs a smaller catalog on owned data centers with cache reuse and tailored SLAs.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Crusoe vs Novita AI: key differences
Novita AI is the budget generalist. Its serverless API covers 200+ open models across LLMs, image, video, speech and embeddings, with LLM prices from $0.02 per million tokens and batch at 50% off. It speaks both OpenAI and Anthropic formats and often ships new open models on day zero, as it did for Gemma 4. Crusoe's serverless list is narrower, centered on DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi, Gemma, gpt-oss and Nemotron, and starts at $0.05 in and $0.20 out. Crusoe's argument is speed on repeated context. Its MemoryAlloy KV cache is shared across the cluster, and Crusoe claims up to 5x throughput over vLLM on prefix-heavy work. Novita lists roughly 36 tokens per second on DeepSeek V4 Pro, with the full 1M context.
Enterprise readiness separates them. Novita has looser serverless SLAs, Discord-based support and no public SOC 2, HIPAA or VPC peering. Its dedicated endpoints carry a 99.5% SLA and run any Hugging Face model with hot-swappable LoRA adapters. Crusoe offers Tailored Deployments with SLAs, managed LoRA fine-tuning and raw GPU clusters on GB200, B200 and AMD MI355X from its own data centers. Novita's GPU cloud is broader at the low end, from RTX 3090s up to H200s, with spot up to 50% off, and it adds a per-second Agent Sandbox. For cost-first prototypes Novita is hard to beat.
What Crusoe and Novita AI do
Crusoe
Crusoe started in 2018 turning wasted natural gas into power for computing and has since become a vertically integrated AI infrastructure company: it sources energy, builds data centers and rents GPUs through Crusoe Cloud. It designed and built the Abilene, Texas campus behind the OpenAI and Oracle Stargate project, planned at 1.2 GW, and in March 2026 announced an adjacent 900 MW campus for Microsoft. On September 17, 2026 it closed the first part of a $3.9B Series F at a $30.9B post-money valuation, and it reports over 6 GW of contracted capacity. Crusoe Cloud lists GB200 NVL72, B200 and AMD MI355X by quote, with H100 at $3.90 and H200 at $4.29 per GPU-hour on demand.
Example models: DeepSeek V4 Pro, GLM 5.3, Kimi K2.6
Full Crusoe profileNovita AI
Novita AI is a San Francisco inference cloud founded in late 2023 by Frank Lewis and Junyu Huang, and it competes on price and breadth. Its serverless API covers 200+ open models across LLMs, image, video, speech, voice cloning and embeddings, with LLM prices starting at $0.02 per million tokens. The API speaks both OpenAI and Anthropic formats. It became an official Hugging Face Inference Partner in April 2026 and was the day-zero launch partner for Google's Gemma 4.
Example models: DeepSeek V4 Pro, Gemma 4
Full Novita AI profileShould you choose Crusoe or Novita AI?
Crusoe vs Novita AI at a glance
| Attribute | Crusoe | Novita AI |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Open weights |
| Flagship models | DeepSeek V4, GLM 5.3, Kimi K2.6, Nemotron 3 | DeepSeek V4 Pro, Gemma 4 |
| Speed | Up to 9.9x faster TTFT vs vLLM (vendor claim) | ~36 tok/s on DeepSeek V4 Pro |
| Price | $0.05–$1.74 in, $0.20–$4.40 out per 1M | From $0.02 per 1M; batch 50% off |
| Customization | Serverless LoRA fine-tuning | Hot-swappable LoRA adapters |
| Deployment | Serverless, self-serve and tailored dedicated, raw GPUs | Serverless, GPU cloud, dedicated |
| Long context | Varies by model; cluster-wide KV cache | Full 1M on DeepSeek V4 Pro |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Crusoe and Novita AI?
Novita AI wins on breadth and floor prices across 200+ models. Crusoe runs a smaller catalog on owned data centers with cache reuse and tailored SLAs.
When should I choose Crusoe over Novita AI?
Multi-turn agents with long repeated context; Production deployments that need an SLA; Training on GB200 or B200 capacity.
When should I choose Novita AI over Crusoe?
Cheapest calls across a very wide catalog; Day-zero access to new open models; Indie apps mixing LLM, image and speech.
Is Crusoe or Novita AI cheaper?
Crusoe: $0.05–$1.74 in, $0.20–$4.40 out per 1M. Novita AI: From $0.02 per 1M; batch 50% off. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Crusoe or Novita AI?
Crusoe: Varies by model; cluster-wide KV cache. Novita AI: Full 1M on DeepSeek V4 Pro.
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.