# Groq vs Sail Research

> Groq sells the fastest possible reply. Sail Research sells deep discounts for replies that can wait minutes. Different answers to the same cost question.

Canonical: https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/groq-vs-sail-research · By The Subconscious Team · Updated September 30, 2026

## How they compare

Groq and Sail Research sit at opposite corners. Groq's LPU returns tokens at several times GPU speed with steady tails, and its use cases are voice agents and fast multi-call loops. Sail's serving stack packs as much work as possible into every GPU. Customers pick a completion window, from priority at about a minute per turn for 30 to 50% off to flex off-peak for 60 to 80% off. Sail says outright that it does not suit voice, live chat or interactive UI. Groq has nothing to offer an agent that runs for hours unattended and wants the lowest cost.

Catalogs overlap on GPT-OSS 120B, and Sail also serves Kimi K2.6, GLM-5, Qwen 3.6 and Gemma 4, plus customer LoRA fine-tunes, which Groq does not host. Sail adds Sailboxes, persistent compute for agents that run indefinitely. Groq adds Whisper and Groq Compound for search and code execution. Many products could use both, with Groq on the user-facing turn and Sail on the background research job that follows it.

## What each one does

### 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.

### Sail Research

Sail Research sells throughput over latency. Founders Neil Movva and Samir Menon built a serving stack that packs as much work as possible into every GPU, and customers state how long they can wait through completion windows. The priority window targets about a one-minute turn for roughly 30 to 50% off the immediate asap price. The default standard window targets about five minutes for 45 to 65% off. The flex window runs off-peak for 60 to 80% off.

## Which is best, and when

### Choose Groq for

- Voice and live chat on open models
- Agent steps a user is waiting on
- Speech to text with Whisper

### Choose Sail Research for

- Background agents that run for hours
- Evals and batch work at 30 to 80% off
- Serving customer LoRA fine-tunes on open models

## At a glance

| Attribute | Groq | Sail Research |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Open weights |
| Flagship models | GPT-OSS 120B, Qwen 3.6 27B | Kimi K2.6, GLM-5, GPT-OSS 120B |
| Speed | 500–1,000 tok/s | Minutes per turn by design |
| Price | Near the floor on small models | 30–80% off by completion window |
| Customization | No fine-tuned model hosting | Customer LoRA fine-tunes |
| Deployment | GroqCloud API | API plus Sailboxes |
| Long context | Around 131K max | Varies by model |

## FAQ

### What is the difference between Groq and Sail Research?

Groq sells the fastest possible reply. Sail Research sells deep discounts for replies that can wait minutes. Different answers to the same cost question.

### When should I choose Groq over Sail Research?

Voice and live chat on open models; Agent steps a user is waiting on; Speech to text with Whisper.

### When should I choose Sail Research over Groq?

Background agents that run for hours; Evals and batch work at 30 to 80% off; Serving customer LoRA fine-tunes on open models.

### Is Groq or Sail Research cheaper?

Groq: Near the floor on small models. Sail Research: 30–80% off by completion window. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.

### Which has more context, Groq or Sail Research?

Groq: Around 131K max. Sail Research: Varies by model.

## Running long-horizon agents?

If your agents run past 200K tokens, compare both against Subconscious: [Subconscious vs Groq](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-groq.md), [Subconscious vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-sail-research.md).

Full profiles: [Groq](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/groq.md), [Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/sail-research.md).