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Subconscious vs Dolphin
Both serve DeepSeek V4.1 Flash. Dolphin sells it at very low prices on idle consumer GPUs. Subconscious runs it on a runtime built for agent traces past 200K tokens.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Subconscious vs Dolphin: key differences
Dolphin's API, launched in October 2026, serves DeepSeek V4.1 Flash at $0.01 in and $0.07 out per million tokens over a decentralized network of gamers' and hobbyists' GPUs, with validators checking that nodes run the right model. It publishes no speed, context limit or SLA, and signup runs through a crypto wallet and Telegram. Subconscious serves the same model on managed infrastructure, with a runtime that prunes the KV cache and preserves suffix state. It delivers 2x faster task completion, 50% to 80% lower cost than standard inference and a 5M+ effective context window.
Dolphin's list price is hard to beat for short, latency-tolerant calls, and its uncensored fine-tunes suit products that need models without vendor refusals. For long agent runs, predictable latency and uptime matter more than per-token price, and Dolphin cannot yet show either. Subconscious also offers dedicated and on-prem deployments and plugs into Claude Code, Cursor and GitHub Copilot.
What Subconscious and Dolphin do
Subconscious
Subconscious is an MIT CSAIL spinout in Kendall Square that builds inference for long-horizon agents, the workloads where a single trace runs past 200K tokens and often into the millions. Its runtime drops in as a replacement for vLLM or SGLang. Instead of rereading an ever-growing context on every step, it prunes the KV cache and preserves suffix state, and Subconscious co-designs the runtime with post-trained model variants it calls Marathon. Against open models on standard inference, Subconscious delivers 2x faster task completion, delivers a 5M+ effective context window, cuts cost 50% and up to 80%, and scores neutral to 10% better on agentic benchmarks.
Example models: GLM 5.3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Full Subconscious profile
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.
Example models: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Dolphin Mistral 24B
Full Dolphin profileShould you choose Subconscious or Dolphin?
Subconscious
Choose Subconscious for
- Long coding agents on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- 5M+ effective context
- Dedicated or on-prem deployment with standard procurement
Dolphin
Choose Dolphin for
- The lowest per-token price on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- Uncensored open models
- Latency-tolerant batch jobs
Subconscious vs Dolphin at a glance
| Attribute | Subconscious |  Dolphin |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Open weights, uncensored fine-tunes |
| Flagship models | GLM 5.3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Dolphin Mistral 24B |
| Speed | 2x faster task completion | Unknown |
| Price | 50–80% lower cost; billed on processed tokens | $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash) |
| Customization | Marathon post-trained variants | Own uncensored fine-tunes |
| Deployment | Managed API, dedicated, on-prem | Decentralized serverless API |
| Long context | 5M+ effective context | Unknown |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Subconscious and Dolphin?
Both serve DeepSeek V4.1 Flash. Dolphin sells it at very low prices on idle consumer GPUs. Subconscious runs it on a runtime built for agent traces past 200K tokens.
When should I choose Subconscious over Dolphin?
Long coding agents on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash; 5M+ effective context; Dedicated or on-prem deployment with standard procurement.
When should I choose Dolphin over Subconscious?
The lowest per-token price on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash; Uncensored open models; Latency-tolerant batch jobs.
Is Subconscious or Dolphin cheaper?
Subconscious: 50–80% lower cost; billed on processed tokens. Dolphin: $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash). The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
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Run your longest agent traces on Subconscious
Point the OpenAI or Anthropic SDK, or the coding agent you already use, at Subconscious. Keep Dolphin for the work it does best and send the long runs to us.