# fal vs Dolphin

> fal hosts 1,000+ generative media models. Dolphin serves one cheap text model and publishes uncensored fine-tunes, so they rarely overlap.

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

## How they compare

fal covers image, video and audio models like FLUX, Kling and Seedream, bills per output, and charges nothing for failed requests or cold starts on shared endpoints. 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.

Pick fal for media generation. Pick Dolphin for very cheap text calls or uncensored text models, where variable latency is acceptable and the team can sign up with a crypto wallet and Telegram.

## What each one does

### fal

fal is the go-to inference platform for generative media. It hosts 1,000+ image, video and audio models behind one API, including FLUX, Kling, Seedream and other video models, and new releases often land there before competitors have them. Every model page exposes its schema, a playground and example code. Pricing follows the output: per image or megapixel for images, per second or per clip for video, and GPU time for custom work.

### 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 fal for

- Image, video and audio generation
- Day-one access to new media models
- Billing that skips failures

### Choose Dolphin for

- Very cheap text calls
- Uncensored text models
- Background jobs with loose latency needs

## At a glance

| Attribute | fal | Dolphin |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Hosted media models | Open weights, uncensored fine-tunes |
| Flagship models | FLUX, Kling, Seedream | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Dolphin Mistral 24B |
| Speed | Cold starts on less popular endpoints | - |
| Price | Per image, per video second, GPU time | $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash) |
| Customization | LoRA training endpoints | Own uncensored fine-tunes |
| Deployment | Hosted API, serverless GPUs | Decentralized serverless API |
| Long context | Not applicable | - |

## FAQ

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

fal hosts 1,000+ generative media models. Dolphin serves one cheap text model and publishes uncensored fine-tunes, so they rarely overlap.

### When should I choose fal over Dolphin?

Image, video and audio generation; Day-one access to new media models; Billing that skips failures.

### When should I choose Dolphin over fal?

Very cheap text calls; Uncensored text models; Background jobs with loose latency needs.

### Is fal or Dolphin cheaper?

fal: Per image, per video second, GPU time. 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 fal](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-fal.md), [Subconscious vs Dolphin](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-dolphin.md).

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