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Venice vs Dolphin
Venice and Dolphin both serve uncensored models and worked together on Dolphin Mistral 24B Venice Edition. Venice is a broad private API; Dolphin is a new decentralized network.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Venice vs Dolphin: key differences
Venice offers 370+ models across text, image, audio and video, with contract-enforced zero retention, TEE and end-to-end encrypted options, and credits in USD, crypto or DIEM staking. 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. Requests are encrypted end to end and nodes cannot keep logs.
Both have crypto-native payment and a no-logging pitch. Venice is the more complete platform, with many models, published context lengths and USD billing. Dolphin is the cheaper option for one model, if a brand-new network on consumer GPUs is acceptable.
What Venice and Dolphin do
Venice
Venice is a privacy-focused AI platform founded in 2024 by Erik Voorhees, the crypto entrepreneur behind ShapeShift. It pairs a consumer chat app with a developer API that works as a drop-in replacement for OpenAI's chat endpoint and covers text, image, audio and video across 370+ models. Open models such as GLM 5.3, Kimi K3, DeepSeek V4 and Venice's own uncensored fine-tunes run under a private tier with contract-enforced zero data retention, and some add TEE inference or end-to-end encryption, where only an attested enclave can decrypt the prompt. Closed models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google are proxied under an anonymized tier that hides user identity but leaves prompt content visible to the upstream provider.
Example models: GLM 5.3, Kimi K3, Venice Uncensored 1.2
Full Venice 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 Venice or Dolphin?
Venice vs Dolphin at a glance
| Attribute | Venice |  Dolphin |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights, plus proxied closed models | Open weights, uncensored fine-tunes |
| Flagship models | GLM 5.3, Kimi K3, DeepSeek V4 Pro | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Dolphin Mistral 24B |
| Speed | Unknown | Unknown |
| Price | $0.06–$12 in, $0.28–$60 out per 1M; DIEM staking | $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash) |
| Customization | Unknown | Own uncensored fine-tunes |
| Deployment | Serverless API, consumer app | Decentralized serverless API |
| Long context | 1M on most current models | Unknown |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Venice and Dolphin?
Venice and Dolphin both serve uncensored models and worked together on Dolphin Mistral 24B Venice Edition. Venice is a broad private API; Dolphin is a new decentralized network.
When should I choose Venice over Dolphin?
Many models across text, image, audio and video; Zero-retention and TEE inference; USD or crypto billing.
When should I choose Dolphin over Venice?
Very low prices on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash; Uncensored Dolphin fine-tunes; Cheap background or batch calls.
Is Venice or Dolphin cheaper?
Venice: $0.06–$12 in, $0.28–$60 out per 1M; DIEM staking. Dolphin: $0.01 in, $0.07 out (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash). The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
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