What is the difference between Salad Cloud and Thunder Compute?

Salad Cloud and Thunder Compute are both cloud GPU providers offering different pricing models, features, and GPU availability. Use our comparison tool to see real-time pricing and feature differences.

Which is cheaper: Salad Cloud or Thunder Compute?

Pricing varies by GPU model and usage requirements. Check our real-time comparison table to find the best deals for your specific needs.

Can I switch between Salad Cloud and Thunder Compute?

Yes, both providers offer flexible cloud GPU services. However, consider factors like data transfer costs, setup time, and specific features when switching between providers.

How many GPU models are available for comparison?

We track pricing for 42 different GPU models across both Salad Cloud and Thunder Compute, with 0 models available from both providers.

Salad Cloud vs Thunder Compute

Compare GPU pricing between Salad Cloud and Thunder Compute. Find the best rates for AI training, inference, and ML workloads.

Salad Cloud

Provider 1

GPUs Available

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Thunder Compute

Provider 2

GPUs Available

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Comparison Overview

Total GPU Models

Salad Cloud GPUs

Thunder Compute GPUs

Direct Comparisons

GPU Pricing Comparison

Total GPUs: 42Both available: 0Salad Cloud: 37Thunder Compute: 5

Showing 15 of 42 GPUs

Last updated: 10/4/2026, 4:41:43 AM

GPU Model ↑	Salad Cloud Price	Thunder Compute Price	Price Diff ↕	Sources
A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Thunder Compute	Not Available	$1.09/hr★ Best	—	Thunder Compute
A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Not Available Thunder Compute $1.09/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Thunder Compute
GTX 1050 Ti 4GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.01/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
GTX 1050 Ti 4GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.01/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
GTX 1060 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.02/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
GTX 1060 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.02/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
GTX 1650 4GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.01/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
GTX 1650 4GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.01/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
GTX 1660 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.02/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
GTX 1660 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.02/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.02/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.02/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • Thunder Compute	Not Available	$3.20/hr★ Best	—	Thunder Compute
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • Not Available Thunder Compute $3.20/hour Updated: 9/29/2026 ★Best Price Thunder Compute
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Thunder Compute	Not Available	$3.20/hr★ Best	—	Thunder Compute
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Not Available Thunder Compute $3.20/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Thunder Compute
L40 40GB VRAM • Thunder Compute	Not Available	$0.79/hr★ Best	—	Thunder Compute
L40 40GB VRAM • Not Available Thunder Compute $0.79/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Thunder Compute
RTX 2060 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.02/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 2060 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.02/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
RTX 2070 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.02/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 2070 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.02/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
RTX 2080 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.05/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 2080 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.05/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
RTX 2080 Ti 11GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.06/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 2080 Ti 11GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.06/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
RTX 3050 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.03/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 3050 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.03/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
RTX 3060 12GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.03/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 3060 12GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.03/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API

A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Thunder Compute	Not Available	$1.09/hr★ Best	—	Thunder Compute
A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Not Available Thunder Compute $1.09/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Thunder Compute
GTX 1050 Ti 4GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.01/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
GTX 1050 Ti 4GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.01/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
GTX 1060 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.02/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
GTX 1060 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.02/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
GTX 1650 4GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.01/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
GTX 1650 4GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.01/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
GTX 1660 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.02/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
GTX 1660 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.02/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.02/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.02/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • Thunder Compute	Not Available	$3.20/hr★ Best	—	Thunder Compute
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • Not Available Thunder Compute $3.20/hour Updated: 9/29/2026 ★Best Price Thunder Compute
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Thunder Compute	Not Available	$3.20/hr★ Best	—	Thunder Compute
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Not Available Thunder Compute $3.20/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Thunder Compute
L40 40GB VRAM • Thunder Compute	Not Available	$0.79/hr★ Best	—	Thunder Compute
L40 40GB VRAM • Not Available Thunder Compute $0.79/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Thunder Compute
RTX 2060 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.02/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 2060 6GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.02/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
RTX 2070 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.02/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 2070 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.02/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
RTX 2080 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.05/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 2080 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.05/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
RTX 2080 Ti 11GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.06/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 2080 Ti 11GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.06/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
RTX 3050 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.03/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 3050 8GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.03/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API
RTX 3060 12GB VRAM • Salad Cloud	$0.03/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Salad API
RTX 3060 12GB VRAM • Salad Cloud $0.03/hour Updated: 10/3/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Salad API

Features Comparison

Salad Cloud

Community Cloud
On-demand pool of idle consumer GPUs with nodes in 190+ countries, deployed onto through Salad Container Engine.
Salad Container Engine
Managed orchestration that schedules Docker containers onto nodes it does not control, isolates them behind a hypervisor, streams logs, and reallocates work when a node disappears.
Priority Tiers
High, Medium, Low, and Lowest tiers price the same GPU class differently so a workload can trade preemption risk for cost; High is never preempted by other workloads.
Salad Dedicated
Reserved bare metal and virtual machines on contract, starting with RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell, quoted per allocation and term.
Private Cloud
Salad's orchestration stack licensed per deployment on hardware you already own, pooling idle workstation and server GPUs into a private OpenAI-compatible token service.
Managed APIs and Tooling
AI Gateway (an OpenAI-compatible endpoint for open-weight models, in closed beta), Transcription API, Recipes deployment templates, S4 temporary storage, Gateway Service residential IPs, and a Virtual Kubelet for Kubernetes.

Thunder Compute

Rapid deployment
Spin up a dedicated cloud GPU in seconds.
Flexible configurations
Customize vCPUs, RAM, and storage.
Networking
Supports 7-10 Gbps networking speeds.
Development tools
Integrated VS Code extension for easier development.
Snapshot capabilities
Ability to take snapshots for later use.

Pros & Cons

Salad Cloud

Advantages

Aggregating idle consumer hardware gives some of the lowest published per-GPU-hour rates available
Per-second billing with no contracts or minimums; allocation, image download, and cold start are not billed
vCPU and RAM are included with every GPU class at no additional charge
Four priority tiers make interruptibility an explicit, priced choice per container group

Considerations

On-demand catalog is consumer RTX GPUs only — data center accelerators are not offered outside the contracted Dedicated product
Published GPU classes top out at 32 GB of VRAM, limiting the size of a model that fits on a single GPU
Nodes are individually owned machines that can disconnect at any time, so workloads must be stateless or retryable

Thunder Compute

Advantages

User-friendly interface
Quick scaling options
Integrated development environment

Considerations

Limited availability in regions
Potential performance variability depending on load

Compute Services

Salad Cloud

Salad Container Engine on Community Cloud

On-demand container orchestration across the distributed pool of idle consumer GPUs, with more than 40 GPU classes selectable by priority tier.

Salad Dedicated

Reserved bare metal and virtual machines on contract, separate from the on-demand community pool.

CPU-only container groups

Container groups with no GPU attached, billed per vCPU-hour and per GB of RAM per hour, running at the Lowest priority tier.

Thunder Compute

Pricing Options

Salad Cloud

Per-second on-demand billing

Published per-GPU-hour rates billed by the second for the time each replica spends running; allocation, image download, and cold start are not charged, and vCPU and RAM are included.

Priority tiers

High, Medium, Low, and Lowest tiers price each GPU class differently - lower tiers cost less and are more interruptible, with Lowest intended for retryable batch work.

CPU-only container groups

Billed per vCPU-hour plus per GB of RAM per hour for container groups that need no GPU.

Volume discounts

Large deployments, long-running jobs, and committed spend are priced below list by sales.

Salad Dedicated contracts

Reserved bare metal and virtual machines quoted separately per allocation and term.

Private Cloud licensing

Licensed per deployment to run the orchestration stack on hardware you already own.

Thunder Compute

Getting Started

Salad Cloud

Get Started

1
Create a SaladCloud account
Sign up at portal.salad.com to reach the dashboard, API keys, and deployment tools.
2
Pick a GPU class and priority tier
Compare published per-GPU-hour rates and live availability on the pricing page, then choose the tier that matches how interruptible the workload is.
3
Deploy a container group
Supply a Docker image, CPU/memory/GPU resources, and a replica count through the portal or the public API; Recipes provide ready-made templates for popular open models.
4
Monitor and scale
Track replicas in the portal and adjust GPU class, priority, or replica count; the container engine reallocates work as nodes join and leave the network.
5
Talk to sales for reserved or volume capacity
Large deployments, committed spend, and Salad Dedicated allocations are quoted directly rather than bought self-service.

Thunder Compute

Get Started

1
Create an account
Sign up for an account on the Thunder Compute platform.
2
Choose a template
Select a pre-built template for your AI workflow.
3
Customize your setup
Adjust the vCPUs, RAM, and storage as necessary.
4
Launch your instance
Start your GPU instance with a single click.
5
Connect to your environment
Use the VS Code extension to access your persistent environment.

Support & Global Availability

Salad Cloud

Global Regions

Nodes in 190+ countries across the distributed network; capacity is chosen by GPU class and priority tier rather than by selectable region, and availability varies by class.

Support

Documentation at docs.salad.com, a developer hub and Recipes library, status page at cloud-status.salad.com, Trust Center, Discord and GitHub communities, and direct engineering and sales contact for volume and enterprise deployments.

Thunder Compute

Global Regions

Available in the US and possibly other regions.

Support

24/7 support via email and chat.