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Moonshot AI vs Crusoe
Moonshot's API serves Kimi K3, the most capable open-weight model, at $3 in and $15 out. Crusoe hosts the cheaper Kimi K2.6 alongside other open models.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Moonshot AI vs Crusoe: key differences
Moonshot AI builds the Kimi models, and Crusoe hosts one of them. Moonshot's flagship Kimi K3 is a 2.8 trillion parameter mixture-of-experts model with native vision and a 1M context, priced at $3 in and $15 out per million with cached input at $0.30. Vals AI scored it 93.4% on SWE-bench Verified. Crusoe's serverless catalog lists Kimi K2.6 rather than K3, alongside DeepSeek, GLM 5.3, Gemma, gpt-oss and Nemotron, priced from $0.05 in up to $4.40 out per million. Moonshot serves K2.6 itself at $0.95 in and $4 out. K3 is slow, around 33 tokens per second, and always thinks. Crusoe claims up to 9.9x faster time to first token versus vLLM on prefix-heavy work.
Capacity is the practical gap. Demand for K3 overran Moonshot's GPUs within days of launch, and new API subscriptions paused on July 19 before reopening in batches. Self-hosting K3 takes a 64+ accelerator cluster, and the custom license adds a commercial agreement above $20M in hosting revenue. Crusoe reports over 6 GW of contracted capacity, rents GB200 and B200 clusters, and offers LoRA fine-tuning and dedicated endpoints with SLAs, though it does not list K3 on serverless. Pick Moonshot for K3's near-frontier coding scores and 1M context on repo-scale agents. Pick Crusoe for Kimi K2.6 or other open models with fine-tuning, dedicated capacity, and one vendor for both inference and GPUs.
What Moonshot AI and Crusoe do
Moonshot AI
Moonshot AI is the Beijing lab behind the Kimi models. Its flagship Kimi K3 launched July 16, 2026 as a 2.8 trillion parameter mixture-of-experts model that activates 16 of 896 experts per token, with native vision and a 1M token context. It is the first open model in the 3T class, and full weights landed on Hugging Face on July 27. The hosted API costs $3 in and $15 out per million tokens, with cached input at $0.30, and it runs through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, Kimi Code in the terminal, OpenRouter and Cloudflare Workers AI.
Example models: Kimi K3, Kimi K2.6
Full Moonshot AI profileCrusoe
Crusoe started in 2018 turning wasted natural gas into power for computing and has since become a vertically integrated AI infrastructure company: it sources energy, builds data centers and rents GPUs through Crusoe Cloud. It designed and built the Abilene, Texas campus behind the OpenAI and Oracle Stargate project, planned at 1.2 GW, and in March 2026 announced an adjacent 900 MW campus for Microsoft. On September 17, 2026 it closed the first part of a $3.9B Series F at a $30.9B post-money valuation, and it reports over 6 GW of contracted capacity. Crusoe Cloud lists GB200 NVL72, B200 and AMD MI355X by quote, with H100 at $3.90 and H200 at $4.29 per GPU-hour on demand.
Example models: DeepSeek V4 Pro, GLM 5.3, Kimi K2.6
Full Crusoe profileShould you choose Moonshot AI or Crusoe?
Moonshot AI
Choose Moonshot AI for
- Kimi K3 for long-horizon coding on huge repos
- 1M context for document-heavy research
- Access through Kimi Code and OpenRouter
Crusoe
Choose Crusoe for
- Kimi K2.6 next to DeepSeek and GLM on one API
- LoRA fine-tuning of open models
- GB200 and B200 clusters for self-hosting big models
Moonshot AI vs Crusoe at a glance
| Attribute | Moonshot AI | Crusoe |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights, custom license | Open weights |
| Flagship models | Kimi K3, Kimi K2.6 | DeepSeek V4, GLM 5.3, Kimi K2.6, Nemotron 3 |
| Speed | ~33 tok/s on Kimi K3 | Up to 9.9x faster TTFT vs vLLM (vendor claim) |
| Price | $3 in, $15 out (Kimi K3) | $0.05–$1.74 in, $0.20–$4.40 out per 1M |
| Customization | Open weights to fine-tune | Serverless LoRA fine-tuning |
| Deployment | API, Kimi Code, OpenRouter | Serverless, self-serve and tailored dedicated, raw GPUs |
| Long context | 1M | Varies by model; cluster-wide KV cache |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Moonshot AI and Crusoe?
Moonshot's API serves Kimi K3, the most capable open-weight model, at $3 in and $15 out. Crusoe hosts the cheaper Kimi K2.6 alongside other open models.
When should I choose Moonshot AI over Crusoe?
Kimi K3 for long-horizon coding on huge repos; 1M context for document-heavy research; Access through Kimi Code and OpenRouter.
When should I choose Crusoe over Moonshot AI?
Kimi K2.6 next to DeepSeek and GLM on one API; LoRA fine-tuning of open models; GB200 and B200 clusters for self-hosting big models.
Is Moonshot AI or Crusoe cheaper?
Moonshot AI: $3 in, $15 out (Kimi K3). Crusoe: $0.05–$1.74 in, $0.20–$4.40 out per 1M. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Moonshot AI or Crusoe?
Moonshot AI: 1M. Crusoe: Varies by model; cluster-wide KV cache.
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