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Particle.AI vs Luminal
Particle.AI sells cheap Flash-class models with 1M context via Vercel AI Gateway. Luminal compiles models you bring into faster GPU code.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Particle.AI vs Luminal: key differences
Particle.AI serves a few Flash-class open models, such as GLM 5.3 Flash at $0.10 in and $0.40 out and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, all with 1M context, through Vercel AI Gateway. Luminal sells no catalog: its compiler turns a model you bring into native GPU kernels ahead of time, served on early-access endpoints or licensed on-prem.
Particle fits teams that want cheap tokens on popular small models with no new contract. Luminal fits teams running their own model at volume who want more throughput, with a reported 36K tokens per second on GPT-OSS 120B across 8 H100s. Both are very early, with little independent benchmarking.
What Particle.AI and Luminal do
Particle.AI
Particle AI is an early San Francisco infrastructure startup with a mission to make intelligence as cheap and abundant as electricity. The team works on post-training, inference optimization and distributed systems, all aimed at pushing down cost per unit of intelligence. It is still hiring its founding team and works fully in person. Public detail about funding and founders is thin as of this writing.
Example models: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, GLM 5.3 Flash
Full Particle.AI profileLuminal
Luminal builds an inference compiler. Where vLLM and SGLang interpret a model at runtime, Luminal compiles it ahead of time into native kernels for GPUs and ASICs. Models get lowered to a small graph of 15 primitive ops, and the compiler searches over fusion, tiling, memory and scheduling choices instead of relying on hand-written rules, which it says can find optimizations like Flash Attention on its own. The compiler is open source in Rust under Apache 2.0 or MIT, runs on CUDA and Metal with ROCm on the roadmap, and works as a torch.compile backend.
Example models: GPT-OSS 120B, Llama 3 8B
Full Luminal profileShould you choose Particle.AI or Luminal?
Particle.AI
Choose Particle.AI for
- Cheap Flash-class models with 1M context
- Access through Vercel AI Gateway
- No contract to sign
Luminal
Choose Luminal for
- Serving custom or fine-tuned architectures off any catalog
- Maximum throughput per GPU on a self-chosen model
- On-prem deployments with custom kernel work and SLAs
Particle.AI vs Luminal at a glance
| Attribute |  Particle.AI | Luminal |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Bring your own weights |
| Flagship models | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, GLM 5.3 Flash | No public catalog |
| Speed | ~157 tok/s on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | 36K tok/s on GPT-OSS 120B, 8xH100 (vendor) |
| Price | $0.10 in, $0.40 out (GLM 5.3 Flash) | Pay per use; rates not published |
| Customization | Unknown | Compiles any PyTorch or HF model |
| Deployment | Via Vercel AI Gateway | Serverless (early access), on-prem license |
| Long context | 1M | Unknown |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Particle.AI and Luminal?
Particle.AI sells cheap Flash-class models with 1M context via Vercel AI Gateway. Luminal compiles models you bring into faster GPU code.
When should I choose Particle.AI over Luminal?
Cheap Flash-class models with 1M context; Access through Vercel AI Gateway; No contract to sign.
When should I choose Luminal over Particle.AI?
Serving custom or fine-tuned architectures off any catalog; Maximum throughput per GPU on a self-chosen model; On-prem deployments with custom kernel work and SLAs.
Is Particle.AI or Luminal cheaper?
Particle.AI: $0.10 in, $0.40 out (GLM 5.3 Flash). Luminal: Pay per use; rates not published. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
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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.