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Wafer vs RunInfra
Two young open-model hosts that both sell cheap coding-agent plans and automated deployment tuning. Wafer aims at big models at speed; RunInfra at small teams shipping mid-size models.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Wafer vs RunInfra: key differences
These two look alike on paper. Both are young companies, both serve open weights, both sell flat-rate access for coding harnesses like Claude Code and Cline, and both use an agent to tune deployments. The difference is where each points that agent. Wafer's agents act as GPU performance engineers, rewriting kernels and configs around a customer's model and SLO on NVIDIA or AMD, and Wafer reports its tuned Qwen 3.5 397B running 2.8x faster than stock SGLang. RunInfra's agent takes a plain-English request, benchmarks models across GPUs from L4 to B200, tries quantized variants like AWQ, GPTQ and FP8, and ships an endpoint that scales to zero with cold starts under two seconds.
Model size is the practical split. Wafer's hosted catalog is small but includes large models such as Qwen 3.5 397B Turbo and GLM 5.1 Turbo. RunInfra's library centers on mid-size models like Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B and Qwen 3.8 27B, which it admits sit far from frontier quality. Pricing entry points differ too: Wafer Pass starts at $10 a week, RunInfra coding plans at $10 a month. RunInfra also accepts custom uploads up to 50 GB and chains voice pipelines. Both speed claims are self-reported, so test on your own traffic.
What Wafer and RunInfra do
Wafer
Wafer builds AI agents that act as GPU performance engineers, then sells inference on the stacks those agents tune. The company came out of Y Combinator's Summer 2025 batch as a "Cursor for CUDA" that turned slow PyTorch into custom kernels. Founders Emilio Andere and Steven Arellano are based in San Francisco. Its agents profile a workload, generate candidate configs across batching, decoding, quantization, engines, kernels and hardware, measure each one and deploy the winner.
Example models: Qwen 3.5 397B Turbo, GLM 5.1 Turbo
Full Wafer profileRunInfra
RunInfra pitches open models built for agents, with two ways in. Its hosted Model APIs serve a small curated library, including Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B, Qwen 3.8 27B and Ornith 1.5 35B, behind one key that works with both the OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs. Cached context bills at a discount. Coding plans start at $10 a month with limits that reset every five hours and every week, and they plug into Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cline, Aider and dozens of other agent CLIs.
Example models: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B, Qwen 3.8 27B
Full RunInfra profileShould you choose Wafer or RunInfra?
Wafer
Choose Wafer for
- Coding agents that need large open models at interactive speed.
- Dedicated endpoints with a strict latency SLO, retuned as load changes.
- Teams hedging GPU supply across NVIDIA and AMD.
RunInfra
Choose RunInfra for
- The lowest-cost coding plan for a mid-size open model.
- Small teams deploying a custom upload without ML ops staff.
- Voice pipelines chaining Whisper, an LLM and TTS.
Wafer vs RunInfra at a glance
| Attribute | Wafer | RunInfra |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Open weights |
| Flagship models | Qwen 3.5 397B Turbo, GLM 5.1 Turbo | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B, Qwen 3.8 27B |
| Speed | 2–2.8x vs stock vLLM or SGLang | Cold starts under 2s |
| Price | Wafer Pass from $10 a week | Coding plans from $10 a month |
| Customization | Agent-tuned dedicated deployments | Uploads up to 50 GB; auto-quantization |
| Deployment | Serverless pass, dedicated | Model APIs, agent-built endpoints |
| Long context | Varies by model | Varies by model |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Wafer and RunInfra?
Two young open-model hosts that both sell cheap coding-agent plans and automated deployment tuning. Wafer aims at big models at speed; RunInfra at small teams shipping mid-size models.
When should I choose Wafer over RunInfra?
Coding agents that need large open models at interactive speed; Dedicated endpoints with a strict latency SLO, retuned as load changes; Teams hedging GPU supply across NVIDIA and AMD.
When should I choose RunInfra over Wafer?
The lowest-cost coding plan for a mid-size open model; Small teams deploying a custom upload without ML ops staff; Voice pipelines chaining Whisper, an LLM and TTS.
Is Wafer or RunInfra cheaper?
Wafer: Wafer Pass from $10 a week. RunInfra: Coding plans from $10 a month. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Wafer or RunInfra?
Wafer: Varies by model. RunInfra: Varies by model.
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