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Subconscious vs Meta
Meta's cheapest Muse tier trains on your data. Subconscious records no prompts, serves open models, and keeps long agents fast past Muse Spark's 1M window.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Subconscious vs Meta: key differences
Data handling is the sharpest line between these two. Meta's Contributor tier cuts Muse Spark to $0.10 in and $0.20 out, roughly 95% off, but only if Meta can train on your prompts and completions, and rate limits fall from 3,000 to 100 requests per minute. Standard pricing is $1.25 in and $4.25 out per million tokens with a 1M context. Subconscious records no prompts or inputs, only usage data. On long agents the gap widens. Muse charges per token up to its 1M window, while Subconscious prunes the KV cache, bills processed tokens, and delivers a 5M+ effective context window with 2x faster task completion.
Meta brings things Subconscious does not. One key covers Muse Image at $0.01 per image, voice transcription at $0.18 per hour of audio and web search grounding, and the endpoint speaks OpenAI, Anthropic and a stateful agentic format. For prototypes where sharing data is fine, the Contributor tier is close to free. The API is still in public preview with a short track record, though, and the Contributor terms rule it out for most business traffic. Subconscious, an MIT CSAIL spinout built for long-horizon agents, fits production coding and research agents that have to keep data private.
What Subconscious and Meta 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 profileMeta
Meta has moved from open Llama releases toward its own closed API. Meta Superintelligence Labs builds the Muse family, and in July 2026 Meta opened a public preview of the Meta Model API with Muse Spark 1.1, a multimodal reasoning model aimed at agentic coding, tool use and computer use. The current lineup runs through Muse Spark 1.3 with a 1M token context. Standard pricing is $1.25 in and $4.25 out per million tokens, with cached input at $0.15, and the endpoint speaks OpenAI Chat Completions, Anthropic Messages and a stateful agentic format.
Example models: Muse Spark 1.3, Muse Glimmer
Full Meta profileShould you choose Subconscious or Meta?
Subconscious
Choose Subconscious for
- Private production agents with no prompt logging
- Traces that run past Muse Spark's 1M window
- Long runs billed after compression
Meta
Choose Meta for
- Near-free prototyping where data sharing is acceptable
- Image generation and transcription on the same API key
- A mid-priced agentic model with a stateful API format
Subconscious vs Meta at a glance
| Attribute | Subconscious | Meta |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Closed API; open Muse Glimmer |
| Flagship models | GLM 5.3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | Muse Spark 1.3, Muse Glimmer |
| Speed | 2x faster task completion | ~145–233 tok/s on Muse Spark 1.3 |
| Price | 50–80% lower cost; billed on processed tokens | $1.25 in, $4.25 out; Contributor tier cheaper |
| Customization | Marathon post-trained variants | Open Muse Glimmer weights to fine-tune |
| Deployment | Managed API, dedicated, on-prem | Meta Model API (preview) |
| Long context | 5M+ effective context | 1M |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Subconscious and Meta?
Meta's cheapest Muse tier trains on your data. Subconscious records no prompts, serves open models, and keeps long agents fast past Muse Spark's 1M window.
When should I choose Subconscious over Meta?
Private production agents with no prompt logging; Traces that run past Muse Spark's 1M window; Long runs billed after compression.
When should I choose Meta over Subconscious?
Near-free prototyping where data sharing is acceptable; Image generation and transcription on the same API key; A mid-priced agentic model with a stateful API format.
Is Subconscious or Meta cheaper?
Subconscious: 50–80% lower cost; billed on processed tokens. Meta: $1.25 in, $4.25 out; Contributor tier cheaper. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Subconscious or Meta?
Subconscious: 5M+ effective context. Meta: 1M.
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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 Meta for the work it does best and send the long runs to us.