Beam
Beam is an open-source serverless cloud platform for AI workloads, offering sandbox environments with sub-second cold starts, checkpoint restore, and pay-per-millisecond billing.
Key Features
- Pay-per-millisecond Billing
- Only charged when your code runs, no charges for cold starts or server spin-up
- Sub-second Cold Starts
- Fast function initialization with checkpoint restore technology
- Sandbox Snapshots
- Snapshot and restore sandbox state for faster deployments
- Autoscaling
- Automatic scaling based on demand with deployment logs included
- Custom Docker Images
- Bring your own Docker images for full environment control
- Open Source
- Core engine (beta9) is open-source and can be self-hosted
Provider Comparison
Advantages
- Pay-per-millisecond billing with no charges for cold starts
- Sub-second cold starts with checkpoint restore
- Up to 80% savings compared to always-on instances
- Open-source core engine (beta9) available for self-hosting
- Unlimited apps, cloud storage volumes, and custom images
- Developer-friendly Python SDK
Limitations
- Smaller GPU selection compared to major cloud providers
- Newer platform with smaller community
- Focused primarily on serverless workloads
Compute Services
Pricing Options
| Option | Details |
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Getting Started
1
Create an account
Sign up on the Beam platform
2
Set up Python environment
Create a virtual environment and install the Beam SDK
3
Authenticate with API token
Configure your API token to connect to Beam