Lightning AI
vs
Vast.ai
What's good about each
- Billed by the second, interruptible machines 50-80% off
- Studios move between its own cloud, AWS, GCP, Lambda and Nebius
- Owned H100, B200 and GB300 fleet in US datacenters
- Bring your own AWS or GCP account and spend cloud credits
- Budget cards to Blackwell, including the RTX PRO 6000 and B200
- On-demand, interruptible and reserved rentals
- SOC 2 Type II certified, with vetted datacenter hosts in Secure Cloud
- REST API, CLI, Python SDK and coding agent plugins
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Lightning AI | Vast.ai | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Block storage | $10.00 /mo 100 GB (Drive) · First 10 GB free | -- Not listed | |
| Egress | Not publicly listed | -- Not listed |
Heads up: Figures take each provider's closest plan to a common setup, and vary by region and usage. Hover a service for the reference configuration. Verify before provisioning. More on how we price.
GPUs
Lightning AI offers 8 GPU models. We don't currently list GPU prices for Vast.ai.
Services
Managed services each provider offers.
| Service | Lightning AI | Vast.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Block Storage | ||
| GPU-powered Servers | ||
| Managed Containers | ||
| Python Notebooks |
Compliance
Frameworks each provider states on its own site, each linked to its source.
| Framework | Lightning AI | Vast.ai |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II, AWS and GCP clouds only | Type II, platform only |
| HIPAA | AWS and GCP clouds only | Secure Cloud tier only |
| GDPR | Yes | Yes |
Heads up: Each entry links to the provider's own statement. An attestation can cover one tier, one region or the platform alone rather than every service. Verify the scope before you rely on it. A dash means we found nothing to link to, not that the provider lacks it.
Company details
| Fact | Lightning AI | Vast.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2019 | 2018 |
| Headquarters | USA | USA |
| Locations | -- | -- |
| Example customers | Nvidia, Cursor, Cisco, Runway, Supercell, Stability AI, Black Forest Labs | IBM, Brave, Speechify, Cognition, Bosch |
| Website | lightning.ai | vast.ai |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Lightning AI and Vast.ai against other cloud providers.
Our data for Lightning AI was last updated on Oct. 28, 2026, and for Vast.ai on Oct. 15, 2026.