vs
Groq vs Novita AI
Novita AI offers 200+ cheap models across modalities plus a GPU cloud. Groq offers a few open models at much higher speed with tight latency.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Groq vs Novita AI: key differences
Breadth against speed again, but with a wider gap than most. Novita's serverless API covers 200+ models across LLMs, image, video, speech, voice cloning and embeddings, with LLM prices from $0.02 per million and batch at half off. It also rents GPUs from RTX 3090s to H200s and runs dedicated endpoints for any Hugging Face model with hot-swappable LoRA adapters. Groq serves a small list on its LPU, with no fine-tune hosting, but several times the tokens per second of GPU hosts and consistent tail latency. Novita serves the full 1M context on DeepSeek V4 Pro; Groq caps around 131K.
Both lack much of the enterprise paperwork. Novita has no public SOC 2, HIPAA or VPC peering, looser serverless SLAs and Discord-based support. Groq's uncertainty is strategic, since NVIDIA licensed the LPU and hired most of its engineers. For a voice product or tight agent loop, Groq's speed is the deciding factor. For an indie product that needs cheap text, images, LoRAs and GPUs on one bill, Novita is the more complete fit.
What Groq and Novita AI do
Groq
Groq serves open models on its own chip, the LPU, which keeps model weights in on-chip SRAM and runs a deterministic schedule instead of waiting on GPU memory. Groq publishes 1,000 tokens per second on GPT-OSS 20B and 500 on GPT-OSS 120B. Latency stays tight between median and tail, which matters for strict SLAs. The API is OpenAI-compatible and also hosts Whisper for speech to text plus an agentic system called Groq Compound with built-in search and code execution.
Example models: GPT-OSS 120B, Qwen 3.6 27B
Full Groq 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 Groq or Novita AI?
Groq vs Novita AI at a glance
| Attribute | Groq | Novita AI |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Open weights |
| Flagship models | GPT-OSS 120B, Qwen 3.6 27B | DeepSeek V4 Pro, Gemma 4 |
| Speed | 500–1,000 tok/s | ~36 tok/s on DeepSeek V4 Pro |
| Price | Near the floor on small models | From $0.02 per 1M; batch 50% off |
| Customization | No fine-tuned model hosting | Hot-swappable LoRA adapters |
| Deployment | GroqCloud API | Serverless, GPU cloud, dedicated |
| Long context | Around 131K max | Full 1M on DeepSeek V4 Pro |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Groq and Novita AI?
Novita AI offers 200+ cheap models across modalities plus a GPU cloud. Groq offers a few open models at much higher speed with tight latency.
When should I choose Groq over Novita AI?
Voice and real-time chat on open models; Tight agent loops where each call must be fast; Predictable latency on a small catalog.
When should I choose Novita AI over Groq?
Cheap multimodal generation for indie apps; Serving fine-tunes with hot-swappable LoRAs; Long-context DeepSeek V4 Pro at 1M.
Is Groq or Novita AI cheaper?
Groq: Near the floor on small models. Novita AI: From $0.02 per 1M; batch 50% off. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Groq or Novita AI?
Groq: Around 131K max. 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.