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Dolphin vs OpenScale
Both sell DeepSeek V4.1 Flash cheaply. Dolphin runs it on idle consumer GPUs at lower prices. OpenScale runs it on managed capacity with zero data retention.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Dolphin vs OpenScale: key differences
Dolphin's API, launched in October 2026, serves DeepSeek V4.1 Flash at $0.01 in and $0.07 out per million tokens over a decentralized network of consumer GPUs, with no published speed, context or SLA, and signup through a crypto wallet and Telegram. OpenScale, a Y Combinator-backed API out of Singapore, serves DeepSeek V4.1 Flash at $0.06 in, $0.003 cached and $0.24 out per million tokens under a 50% promotion, at 200+ tokens per second, with a fast tier at about twice the speed. It publishes a 1M token context window and setup guides for Claude Code, Codex and other agents.
Dolphin is the pick for the lowest list price on latency-tolerant work, or for uncensored fine-tunes. OpenScale costs more per token but offers published speed, standard signup and card billing, which matter for coding agents and most procurement teams.
What Dolphin and OpenScale do
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.
Example models: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Dolphin Mistral 24B
Full Dolphin profileOpenScale
OpenScale is a Y Combinator-backed inference API built by LatentSpace and run out of Singapore. It sells open models behind one endpoint that speaks Chat Completions, the OpenAI Responses API and Anthropic Messages, so Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cline, GitHub Copilot, Zed and other coding agents can point at it with a base URL and key. Its public catalog today is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash in two versions, standard and fast, both with a 1M token context window and up to 384K output tokens.
Example models: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Full OpenScale profileShould you choose Dolphin or OpenScale?
Dolphin vs OpenScale at a glance
| Attribute |  Dolphin | OpenScale |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights, uncensored fine-tunes | Open weights |
| Flagship models | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Dolphin Mistral 24B | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash |
| Speed | Unknown | 200+ tok/s; fast tier ~2x |
| Price | $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash) | $0.06 in, $0.24 out (promo, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash) |
| Customization | Own uncensored fine-tunes | N/A |
| Deployment | Decentralized serverless API | Serverless API |
| Long context | Unknown | 1M context |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Dolphin and OpenScale?
Both sell DeepSeek V4.1 Flash cheaply. Dolphin runs it on idle consumer GPUs at lower prices. OpenScale runs it on managed capacity with zero data retention.
When should I choose Dolphin over OpenScale?
The lowest list price on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash; Uncensored open models; Latency-tolerant batch jobs.
When should I choose OpenScale over Dolphin?
Published speed and 1M context; Standard signup and prepaid card billing; Coding agent setup guides.
Is Dolphin or OpenScale cheaper?
Dolphin: $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash). OpenScale: $0.06 in, $0.24 out (promo, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash). The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
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.