# Infron vs Dolphin

> Infron is a gateway to 400+ models with an SLA. Dolphin is a new decentralized network serving one model very cheaply.

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

## How they compare

Infron puts 400+ models from 100+ providers behind one OpenAI-compatible API at provider rates plus a 3% to 5% top-up fee, with fallbacks, region pinning and a 99.9% uptime SLA on dedicated throughput. Dolphin's API launched in October 2026 with one model, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, at $0.01 in and $0.07 out per million tokens, served on idle consumer GPUs across a decentralized network. It publishes no speed, context or SLA, and signup runs through a crypto wallet and Telegram.

Infron suits production apps that need many models, failover and a contract. Dolphin suits cheap, latency-tolerant calls and uncensored models, and its wallet-and-Telegram signup will not fit most procurement teams.

## What each one does

### Infron

Infron is a US-based AI gateway and inference platform. One OpenAI-compatible API reaches 400+ models from 100+ providers, including DeepSeek, Qwen, Claude, Gemini and GPT through what Infron calls official partner routes, plus media and search models. Teams set provider preferences and fallbacks, see usage and billing in one place, and can bring their own provider keys at no fee. Lawrence Xu is CEO and co-founder Andrew Zheng is CTO.

### 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 Infron for

- Closed and open models on one key and one bill
- Automatic failover across providers
- An uptime SLA on dedicated throughput

### Choose Dolphin for

- Very low prices on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- Cheap background or batch calls
- Models without vendor-imposed refusals

## At a glance

| Attribute | Infron | Dolphin |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Closed and open, 400+ models | Open weights, uncensored fine-tunes |
| Flagship models | DeepSeek, Qwen, Claude, Gemini, GPT | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Dolphin Mistral 24B |
| Speed | - | - |
| Price | Provider rates; 3–5% top-up fee | $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash) |
| Customization | Custom deployments | Own uncensored fine-tunes |
| Deployment | Gateway API, dedicated, BYOK | Decentralized serverless API |
| Long context | Varies by model | - |

## FAQ

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

Infron is a gateway to 400+ models with an SLA. Dolphin is a new decentralized network serving one model very cheaply.

### When should I choose Infron over Dolphin?

Closed and open models on one key and one bill; Automatic failover across providers; An uptime SLA on dedicated throughput.

### When should I choose Dolphin over Infron?

Very low prices on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash; Cheap background or batch calls; Models without vendor-imposed refusals.

### Is Infron or Dolphin cheaper?

Infron: Provider rates; 3–5% top-up fee. 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 Infron](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-infron.md), [Subconscious vs Dolphin](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-dolphin.md).

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