Together AI Alternatives: Strong Options Compared
Compare the best Together AI alternatives: Fireworks AI, Groq, OpenRouter, DeepInfra, and Replicate. Prices, strengths, and the right pick for your workload.
By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-11T01:25:50+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-11T01:25:50+00:00
Together AI Alternatives: Strong Options Compared
Together AI hosts open-weight models behind an OpenAI-compatible API. Its serverless tier charges per token. Its catalog covers 200+ models. Teams still look for alternatives. Some want lower prices. Some want faster replies. Some want a broader catalog or dedicated hardware. Five options cover most of those needs: Fireworks AI, Groq, OpenRouter, DeepInfra, and Replicate. This comparison uses current list prices and documented features. Prices change often, so check each provider's pricing page before you commit.
What Together AI Offers, and Why Teams Switch
Together AI sells serverless inference, dedicated endpoints, GPU clusters, and fine-tuning. You call an OpenAI-compatible endpoint and pay per token. The platform lists 200+ models, from small open models to large reasoning models. It also offers a batch API, cached-input discounts on select models, and provisioned throughput for reserved capacity.
Its official pricing page lists these serverless rates per 1M tokens. GPT-OSS 120B costs $0.15 in and $0.60 out. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 in and $1.20 out. Qwen3.5 9B costs $0.17 in and $0.25 out. Kimi K3 costs $3.00 in and $15.00 out. A dedicated H100 endpoint costs $5.49 per GPU hour. A B200 costs $8.99 per GPU hour.
The account is prepaid. The first purchase is at least $15, and the docs say no free trial is offered. Serverless is best-effort. Under high demand it can return 429 or 503 errors. That is the main reason teams add a second provider. Other reasons are price on one key model, latency, catalog gaps, and the cost of dedicated capacity.
Together AI Alternatives Compared
The table below gives the short version. Each provider is covered in more detail further down.
| Provider | Best for | Model access | Billing | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fireworks AI | Closest like-for-like swap | Open models, serverless and dedicated GPUs | Per token, with cached-input discounts | Dedicated billing needs testing |
| Groq | Low latency on supported models | Narrower catalog on LPU silicon | Per token, with a free tier | Catalog is narrower than aggregators |
| OpenRouter | Broadest catalog under one API | Hundreds of models, provider routing and fallbacks | Per token, varies by route | Price and policy vary by route |
| DeepInfra | Cheap serverless and batch work | Open models, serverless and dedicated | Per token | Throughput varies by tier |
| Replicate | Multimodal apps | LLMs plus vision and audio models | Per second | Model coverage varies by type |
Fireworks AI: The Closest Like-for-Like Alternative
Fireworks AI is the closest match to Together AI. It serves open-weight models through serverless inference and dedicated GPUs. It adds training, reinforcement learning, and fine-tuning in the same platform. It supports structured output with JSON Schema and grammars. That makes it a strong pick for teams that need strict output formats.
Its cached-input pricing is low. GPT-OSS 120B cached input is listed at $0.015 per 1M tokens. Pick Fireworks when you want training-to-serving in one place, or when your workload needs structured output and custom models. Test dedicated billing before you move a large workload. Model behavior can differ between serverless and dedicated tiers.
Groq: The Speed Pick Among Together AI Alternatives
Groq runs inference on its own LPU silicon instead of commodity GPUs. It markets much higher tokens-per-second than GPU clouds. One independent measurement put Groq at 473.4 tokens per second on GPT-OSS 120B, against 169.4 for Together AI. Real latency still depends on the model and the load, so benchmark with your own prompts before you commit.
Groq offers a free tier with rate limits. The free GPT-OSS 120B plan lists 30 requests per minute, 1,000 requests per day, 8,000 tokens per minute, and 200,000 tokens per day. Paid developer limits are higher. Pick Groq when latency on its supported models is the top need. Skip it when your model is missing from its catalog.
OpenRouter: The Broadest Catalog
OpenRouter is an aggregator, not a GPU host. One API key and one endpoint reach hundreds of models from many providers. It offers provider ordering, automatic fallbacks, privacy filters, and routing modes. That makes it the pick when you want every model under one bill.
Its lowest listed GPT-OSS 120B route is $0.03 in and $0.15 out per 1M tokens. That is well below Together AI's $0.15 and $0.60 for the same model. The catch is that price, data handling, and policy vary by the upstream route you pick. Check the route before you send production traffic. Pick OpenRouter when catalog breadth and fallback matter more than a single-vendor contract.
DeepInfra and Replicate: The Flexible Pair
DeepInfra is a serverless inference cloud with a turbo tier for faster serving. It is often among the cheapest hosts for batch and offline work. It serves the same open models as Together AI through an OpenAI-compatible API. Pick it when your workload is price-sensitive and can tolerate shared capacity.
Replicate takes a different angle. It pairs LLM inference with a strong vision and audio catalog. Billing is per second. Pick Replicate when your app mixes text, image, and audio models under one vendor. Its LLM catalog is smaller than a pure inference cloud, so check that your model is there first.
How to Choose a Together AI Alternative
Work through this checklist before you move production traffic.
- List your models first. Check that each one exists on the new provider.
- Compare the price of your top three models. Do not judge by the headline rate alone.
- Test latency with your own prompts. Public benchmarks use different workloads.
- Check rate limits at your expected volume. Free and serverless tiers cap requests.
- Confirm data retention and region terms. These vary by provider and by route.
- Test the migration. Most providers are OpenAI-compatible, so change the base URL and the model name, then run your test suite.
Bottom Line
Fireworks AI is the closest swap for Together AI. Groq wins on speed for supported models. OpenRouter wins on catalog breadth and fallback. DeepInfra wins on price for batch work. Replicate wins for multimodal apps. Start with the provider that matches your top need. Then test it with real traffic before you move production.