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Modal vs Sail Research
Sail Research sells discounted open-model tokens for patient, long-running agents. Modal sells per-second GPUs for your own code. Both offer agent sandboxes, with very different pricing.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Modal vs Sail Research: key differences
Sail Research is an inference host tuned for throughput. It serves open models like Kimi K2.6, GLM-5 and GPT-OSS 120B plus customer LoRAs, and discounts 30 to 80% off its asap price depending on the completion window, from a one-minute priority turn to off-peak flex. Its Sailboxes give agents persistent compute that can run indefinitely. Modal is general serverless GPU compute with per-second billing and no catalog, and it also covers agent sandboxes, fine-tuning and batch jobs. Sail sells finished tokens, Modal sells the hardware time underneath.
For background agents on popular open models, Sail usually costs less and needs no serving code, since the tokens and the sandbox come together. Modal fits when the model is custom, when the job is not text generation, or when the work is interactive, which Sail explicitly does not serve. Modal's bursty billing pays off below roughly 80% utilization, but warm containers turn it always-on. Sail's 3x to 10x savings claim is its own, and it offers open models only.
What Modal and Sail Research do
Modal
Modal is serverless compute with GPUs attached. A developer decorates a Python function with the hardware it needs, such as gpu="H100", and Modal builds the container, schedules it, autoscales it and scales it back to zero. Billing runs per second with no minimum increment, from $0.59 an hour for a T4 to $3.95 for an H100 at list. Containers can hold up to 8 GPUs across T4 through B300.
Example models: none hosted by default; teams deploy their own, such as open LLMs on vLLM or Whisper
Full Modal profileSail 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.
Example models: Kimi K2.6, GLM-5
Full Sail Research profileShould you choose Modal or Sail Research?
Modal
Choose Modal for
- Custom models and non-LLM GPU work.
- Interactive endpoints that scale to zero.
- Python-native control of training and serving.
Sail Research
Choose Sail Research for
- Hours-long background agents on open models.
- Deep discounts for workloads that can wait minutes.
- Hosted tokens plus persistent agent sandboxes together.
Modal vs Sail Research at a glance
| Attribute | Modal | Sail Research |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Bring your own weights | Open weights |
| Flagship models | None hosted | Kimi K2.6, GLM-5, GPT-OSS 120B |
| Speed | ~1s container boot | Minutes per turn by design |
| Price | Per second; H100 $3.95/hr list | 30–80% off by completion window |
| Customization | Run any training code | Customer LoRA fine-tunes |
| Deployment | Serverless GPU containers | API plus Sailboxes |
| Long context | Depends on the model you deploy | Varies by model |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Modal and Sail Research?
Sail Research sells discounted open-model tokens for patient, long-running agents. Modal sells per-second GPUs for your own code. Both offer agent sandboxes, with very different pricing.
When should I choose Modal over Sail Research?
Custom models and non-LLM GPU work; Interactive endpoints that scale to zero; Python-native control of training and serving.
When should I choose Sail Research over Modal?
Hours-long background agents on open models; Deep discounts for workloads that can wait minutes; Hosted tokens plus persistent agent sandboxes together.
Is Modal or Sail Research cheaper?
Modal: Per second; H100 $3.95/hr list. Sail Research: 30–80% off by completion window. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Modal or Sail Research?
Modal: Depends on the model you deploy. Sail Research: Varies by model.
Related comparisons
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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.