AI Tool Comparison
Comparing as AI LLM APIs (Foundation Models)Fireworks AI vs Groq
Compare features, pricing, pros & cons, and user ratings to decide which AI tool is best for your needs.
Fireworks AI
VS
Groq
Verdict by Category
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Detailed Comparison
Feature
Fireworks AI
Groq
Pricing
PaidFireworks AI's serverless inference is pay-per-token with postpaid billing and $1 in free starter credits, with per-model rates across Standard, Priority, and Fast tiers detailed in its documentation (e.g. GLM 5.2 at $1.40/M input and $4.40/M output tokens, MiniMax M3 at $0.30/M input and $1.20/M output tokens). Embeddings are priced by base model size, from $0.008 to $0.10 per 1M input tokens. Training is priced per 1M training tokens for supervised fine-tuning (SFT) and direct preference optimization (DPO): LoRA SFT ranges from $0.50 (models up to 16B parameters) to $10.00 (models over 300B), with Full Param SFT and DPO costing roughly 2-4x more depending on model size and method. Reinforcement fine-tuning is billed per GPU hour at on-demand rates. The Serverless Training API charges separately for prefill, cached prefill, sample, and train tokens (e.g. Qwen 3.5 9B at $0.66-$1.995 per 1M tokens depending on operation). On-demand GPU deployments are billed per GPU hour: $7.00 for H100 or H200, $10.00 for B200, $12.00 for B300, and $18.00 for GB300, with region-restricted (US/Europe) deployments priced at 1.5x standard rates. Reserved and enterprise capacity pricing is available by contacting sales.
FreemiumGroqCloud uses pay-as-you-go pricing per million tokens with no seat license or minimum spend. Rates range from roughly $0.05 input / $0.08 output for Llama 3.1 8B Instant up to about $1.00 input / $3.00 output for Kimi K2, with the flagship Llama 3.3 70B Versatile priced at $0.59 input / $0.79 output and GPT-OSS 120B at $0.15 input / $0.60 output. Whisper v3 Turbo transcription is priced at $0.04 per hour of audio. A free tier is available to all registered users with no credit card required, offering access to every model at 30 requests per minute. The Batch API and prompt caching each cut rates by roughly 50%, and can be combined for an effective rate of about 25% of on-demand pricing on eligible workloads. Enterprise pricing, including GroqAssured governance features and dedicated GroqMetal infrastructure, is available by contacting Groq's sales team.
Categories
AI Developer APIs & PlatformsLarge Language Models (LLMs)
AI Developer APIs & PlatformsLarge Language Models (LLMs)
Summary
High-performance training and inference platform for open-source AI models
The fastest inference cloud for open-source LLMs, powered by custom LPU chips
Fireworks AI Pros & Cons
Pros
- Founded by former core PyTorch engineers with deep inference optimization expertise
- OpenAI and Anthropic-compatible API simplifies migration from closed-model providers
- Proprietary FireAttention and FireOptimizer deliver strong throughput and latency gains
- Full spectrum of training options from guided runs to fully custom RL loops
- Proven at massive scale, processing tens of trillions of tokens daily for 10,000+ customers
- Backed by major investors and used in production by Cursor, Notion, Vercel, and Quora
Cons
- Pricing is spread across serverless, on-demand, and training pages, requiring some effort to estimate total costs
- Region-restricted deployments in the US or Europe cost 1.5x standard on-demand rates
- Reserved and enterprise capacity requires contacting sales rather than transparent self-serve pricing
- Reinforcement fine-tuning billed per GPU hour can be harder to predict than flat per-token pricing
- Primarily focused on open-weight models, so access to fully closed frontier models is more limited
Groq Pros & Cons
Pros
- Consistently ranks among the fastest LLM inference providers thanks to purpose-built LPU hardware
- OpenAI-compatible API makes migration from existing integrations fast
- Generous free tier with no credit card required and access to every hosted model
- Batch API and prompt caching can stack to roughly 25% of on-demand pricing
- Proven at scale with 3M+ developers and demanding real-time customers like McLaren F1
Cons
- Only hosts open-source models (Llama, Mixtral, Gemma, Qwen, DeepSeek distills), so there's no access to proprietary models like GPT or Claude through the platform
- The December 2025 NVIDIA licensing deal and departure of founder Jonathan Ross as CEO introduce some uncertainty about the platform's long-term technical direction
- No self-serve fine-tuning; customization requires contacting Groq's sales team or submitting an Enterprise request
- Free tier is limited by requests-per-minute (30 RPM) rather than a generous token allowance, which can bottleneck bursty workloads
- Full pricing isn't published for every capability, and Enterprise/GroqAssured governance features require a custom conversation