Together AI vs Dolphin
Together AI is a full open-model platform with SLAs. Dolphin is a new decentralized network with one hosted model at a very low price.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Together AI vs Dolphin: key differences
Together serves thirty-plus open models with serverless, dedicated deployments, GPU clusters and fine-tuning, plus a 99% SLA on provisioned throughput and no free tier. Dolphin's API launched in October 2026 with one model, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, at $0.01 in and $0.07 out per million tokens, served on idle consumer GPUs across a decentralized network. It publishes no speed, context or SLA, and signup runs through a crypto wallet and Telegram.
Together suits production traffic that needs a catalog, fine-tuning and an SLA. Dolphin suits cheap, latency-tolerant calls and teams that want uncensored models, and its signup flow will not fit most procurement processes.
What Together AI and Dolphin do
Together AI
Together AI is the broadest open-model platform in the category. One bill covers per-token serverless inference, batch at up to 50% off, provisioned throughput with a 99% SLA, dedicated deployments, raw GPU clusters, managed fine-tuning and code sandboxes for agents. The text catalog runs past thirty open models, including GLM 5.3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813, Kimi K3, Qwen 3.8 and MiniMax M3, plus image, video, speech and embedding models. Token prices sit at parity with Fireworks and Baseten.
Example models: Kimi K3, GLM 5.3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Full Together AI profileDolphin
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 Together AI or Dolphin?
Together AI
Choose Together AI for
- Production traffic with an SLA
- Fine-tuning and serving on one platform
- Broad open-model catalog
Dolphin
Choose Dolphin for
- Very low prices on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- Cheap background or batch calls
- Models without vendor-imposed refusals
Together AI vs Dolphin at a glance
| Attribute | ||
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Open weights, uncensored fine-tunes |
| Flagship models | Kimi K3, GLM 5.3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Qwen 3.8 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Dolphin Mistral 24B |
| Speed | 0.99s TTFT on DeepSeek V4 Pro | Unknown |
| Price | Parity with Fireworks and Baseten | $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash) |
| Customization | LoRA and full SFT; RL in beta | Own uncensored fine-tunes |
| Deployment | Serverless, dedicated, GPU clusters | Decentralized serverless API |
| Long context | 512K on DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 | Unknown |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Together AI and Dolphin?
Together AI is a full open-model platform with SLAs. Dolphin is a new decentralized network with one hosted model at a very low price.
When should I choose Together AI over Dolphin?
Production traffic with an SLA; Fine-tuning and serving on one platform; Broad open-model catalog.
When should I choose Dolphin over Together AI?
Very low prices on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash; Cheap background or batch calls; Models without vendor-imposed refusals.
Is Together AI or Dolphin cheaper?
Together AI: Parity with Fireworks and Baseten. Dolphin: $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash). The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
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