# Fireworks AI vs Novita AI

> Novita undercuts Fireworks on most shared models and covers more media types. Fireworks counters with speed, managed RL and enterprise certifications.

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

## How they compare

Novita AI is the cheaper option on most shared open models, with LLMs from $0.02 per million and batch at 50% off. Fireworks' own profile concedes the point: it is pricier than bargain hosts like Novita on smaller commodity models. On DeepSeek V4 Pro, each keeps the full 1M context. Beyond price, Novita is broader across media, with image, video, speech and voice cloning next to LLMs, plus a GPU cloud and an agent sandbox on one bill. Fireworks is faster, posting 167 to 174 tokens per second on DeepSeek V4 Pro in third-party tests.

Enterprise readiness is the sharpest gap. Novita has no public SOC 2, HIPAA or VPC peering, looser serverless SLAs and Discord-based support. Fireworks has SOC 2, HIPAA and ISO plus AWS and GCP marketplace billing. On customization, Novita offers hot-swappable LoRA adapters on dedicated endpoints, while Fireworks runs full SFT, DPO and RL and serves the result at base price. Indie products and prototypes that watch every dollar fit Novita. Regulated buyers and teams training custom models fit Fireworks.

## What each one does

### Fireworks AI

Fireworks AI was founded in 2022 by former Meta PyTorch engineers led by CEO Lin Qiao, and it sells speed on open models. Its custom serving stack has posted 167 to 174 tokens per second on DeepSeek V4 Pro in third-party measurements, several times what most GPU peers hit on the same model. The catalog holds 400+ models across text, vision, audio and embeddings, served through an OpenAI-compatible API. In July 2026 it raised a $1.505B Series D at a $17.5B valuation, with a reported $1B+ run rate and 40T+ tokens a day.

### Novita 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.

## Which is best, and when

### Choose Fireworks AI for

- Enterprises that need SOC 2, HIPAA or ISO
- Reinforcement fine-tuning, not just LoRA adapters
- Latency-sensitive production chat and tool calling

### Choose Novita AI for

- Cost-first LLM and image generation for indie products
- Model APIs, GPUs and agent sandboxes on one bill
- Day-zero access to new open models

## At a glance

| Attribute | Fireworks AI | Novita AI |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Open weights |
| Flagship models | DeepSeek V4 Pro, Kimi K3 | DeepSeek V4 Pro, Gemma 4 |
| Speed | 167–174 tok/s on DeepSeek V4 Pro | ~36 tok/s on DeepSeek V4 Pro |
| Price | Fine-tunes served at base price | From $0.02 per 1M; batch 50% off |
| Customization | SFT, DPO, RFT; Training API | Hot-swappable LoRA adapters |
| Deployment | Serverless, dedicated GPUs | Serverless, GPU cloud, dedicated |
| Long context | Full 1M on DeepSeek V4 Pro | Full 1M on DeepSeek V4 Pro |

## FAQ

### What is the difference between Fireworks AI and Novita AI?

Novita undercuts Fireworks on most shared models and covers more media types. Fireworks counters with speed, managed RL and enterprise certifications.

### When should I choose Fireworks AI over Novita AI?

Enterprises that need SOC 2, HIPAA or ISO; Reinforcement fine-tuning, not just LoRA adapters; Latency-sensitive production chat and tool calling.

### When should I choose Novita AI over Fireworks AI?

Cost-first LLM and image generation for indie products; Model APIs, GPUs and agent sandboxes on one bill; Day-zero access to new open models.

### Is Fireworks AI or Novita AI cheaper?

Fireworks AI: Fine-tunes served at base price. Novita AI: From $0.02 per 1M; batch 50% off. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.

### Which has more context, Fireworks AI or Novita AI?

Fireworks AI: Full 1M on DeepSeek V4 Pro. Novita AI: Full 1M on DeepSeek V4 Pro.

## Running long-horizon agents?

If your agents run past 200K tokens, compare both against Subconscious: [Subconscious vs Fireworks AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-fireworks.md), [Subconscious vs Novita AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-novita-ai.md).

Full profiles: [Fireworks AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/fireworks.md), [Novita AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/novita-ai.md).