Black Forest Labs vs SambaNova Cloud: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence

Full comparison of Black Forest Labs and SambaNova Cloud — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Rates sourced from public APIs — verify before use.

Black Forest Labs

FLUX 1.1 Pro Ultra — the quality benchmark for commercial image generation

Black Forest Labs created FLUX, the model family that has become the quality benchmark for both open and commercial image generation. FLUX 1.1 Pro Ultra produces photorealistic images at up to 4MP resolution. The 2026 lineup adds FLUX 1.1 Pro Ultra (highest quality), FLUX 1.1 Pro (production), FLUX.1 Dev (open-weight, fine-tuning), and FLUX.1 Schnell (open-weight, fastest). FLUX models are available via the BFL API and through Replicate, fal.ai, and other inference platforms.

Commercial image productionPhotorealistic generationCreative AISelf-hosted image generationFine-tuning

Proprietary modelsHosts open weights

SambaNova Cloud

High-throughput inference on SambaNova RDU chips — gpt-oss-120b, GLM-5.3, Llama

SambaNova Cloud runs inference on SambaNova's proprietary Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU) chips, delivering very high throughput (800+ tokens/sec on gpt-oss-120b). The catalog covers gpt-oss-120b, GLM-5.3, MiniMax-M3, DeepSeek-V3.2, Meta-Llama-3.3-70B, and Gemma 4 31B. Pricing is PAYG with prompt caching on select models.

High-throughput inferenceCost-sensitive workloadsOpen-weight models

Open-weight hostHosts open weights

Key metric comparison

Cheapest input ($/1M)

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Cheapest output ($/1M)

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Peak throughput

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Best latency (TTFT)

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Intelligence score

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Context window

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Live token pricing

Strengths and weaknesses

Black Forest Labs

FLUX 1.1 Pro Ultra: highest-quality commercial image generation available

FLUX.1 Dev and Schnell: open-weight models for fine-tuning and self-hosting

FLUX.1 Schnell: fastest open-weight image generation model

Available on Replicate, fal.ai, and other inference platforms

Consistently outperforms Stable Diffusion 3.5 on photorealism benchmarks

Strong prompt adherence and text rendering in images

Newer company with smaller ecosystem than Stable Diffusion

Pro models require API access — no self-hosting for highest quality

Less community fine-tuning ecosystem than SD

SambaNova Cloud

Proprietary RDU chips deliver very high throughput — 800+ tokens/sec on gpt-oss-120b

Competitive pricing on gpt-oss-120b ($0.22/$0.59 per 1M)

Prompt caching on GLM-5.3 (cached input at $0.14/1M)

Strong open-weight model catalog: Llama, DeepSeek, Gemma, MiniMax

Smaller model catalog vs OpenRouter or Together AI

No proprietary frontier models — inference-only platform

RDU architecture may behave differently from GPU inference for some workloads

Key differentiators

Black Forest Labs

FLUX 1.1 Pro Ultra produces the highest-quality AI images available — consistently outperforming Stable Diffusion and competing with Midjourney on photorealism — with open-weight Dev/Schnell variants for self-hosting.

SambaNova Cloud

Proprietary RDU chips deliver industry-leading throughput on open-weight models at competitive per-token rates.

Frequently asked questions

Black Forest Labs FAQs

What is the difference between FLUX 1.1 Pro Ultra and FLUX.1 Dev?

FLUX 1.1 Pro Ultra is a commercial API model offering the highest quality output at up to 4MP resolution. FLUX.1 Dev is an open-weight model available for self-hosting and fine-tuning, with slightly lower quality than Pro Ultra but full weight access.

How does FLUX compare to Stable Diffusion 3.5?

FLUX consistently outperforms SD 3.5 on image quality benchmarks, particularly for photorealism and prompt adherence. FLUX Schnell is also significantly faster than SD 3.5 for equivalent quality.

Where can I access FLUX models?

FLUX models are available via the BFL API directly, and through Replicate, fal.ai, Novita AI, and other inference platforms. FLUX.1 Dev and Schnell weights are also available on Hugging Face for self-hosting.

SambaNova Cloud FAQs

What makes SambaNova Cloud different?

SambaNova runs inference on its own Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU) chips rather than NVIDIA GPUs. This delivers very high throughput — over 800 tokens/sec on gpt-oss-120b — at competitive per-token rates.

What models does SambaNova Cloud offer?

As of October 2026: gpt-oss-120b ($0.22/$0.59), GLM-5.3 ($1.40/$4.40, cached $0.14), MiniMax-M3 ($0.60/$2.40, cached $0.06), DeepSeek-V3.2 ($3.00/$4.50), Meta-Llama-3.3-70B ($0.60/$1.20), and Gemma 4 31B ($0.38/$1.15). See cloud.sambanova.ai/plans/pricing for current rates.

Does SambaNova offer prompt caching?

Yes, on GLM-5.3 (cached input $0.14/1M vs $1.40/1M standard) and MiniMax-M3 (cached input $0.06/1M vs $0.60/1M standard).

Provider resources

Black Forest Labs

Provider page

Website

Pricing Docs

SambaNova Cloud

Provider page

Website

Pricing

Black Forest Labs — FLUX 1.1 Pro Ultra — the quality benchmark for commercial image generation

SambaNova Cloud — High-throughput inference on SambaNova RDU chips — gpt-oss-120b, GLM-5.3, Llama

Proprietary RDU chips deliver industry-leading throughput on open-weight models at competitive per-token rates.

Key strengths compared

Black Forest Labs

FLUX 1.1 Pro Ultra: highest-quality commercial image generation available
FLUX.1 Dev and Schnell: open-weight models for fine-tuning and self-hosting
FLUX.1 Schnell: fastest open-weight image generation model

Newer company with smaller ecosystem than Stable Diffusion
Pro models require API access — no self-hosting for highest quality

SambaNova Cloud

Proprietary RDU chips deliver very high throughput — 800+ tokens/sec on gpt-oss-120b
Competitive pricing on gpt-oss-120b ($0.22/$0.59 per 1M)
Prompt caching on GLM-5.3 (cached input at $0.14/1M)

Smaller model catalog vs OpenRouter or Together AI
No proprietary frontier models — inference-only platform

Key weaknesses compared

Black Forest Labs

Newer company with smaller ecosystem than Stable Diffusion
Pro models require API access — no self-hosting for highest quality
Less community fine-tuning ecosystem than SD

SambaNova Cloud

Smaller model catalog vs OpenRouter or Together AI
No proprietary frontier models — inference-only platform
RDU architecture may behave differently from GPU inference for some workloads

Provider category context

Black Forest Labs is a frontier lab, founded in 2024. SambaNova Cloud is a inference api, founded in 2017. Black Forest Labs as a frontier lab trains and serves its own proprietary models. SambaNova Cloud as an inference API provider hosts open-weight models — typically offering lower prices for equivalent capability tiers but without access to proprietary frontier models.

How to choose between them

Choose Black Forest Labs if you need flux 1.1 pro ultra: highest-quality commercial image generation available. Choose SambaNova Cloud if you need High-throughput inference. For high-volume production workloads, run a cost comparison using the token pricing table above with your actual prompt/completion token ratio — the cheapest provider depends heavily on your input-to-output token ratio.