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Fireworks AI vs Stability AI: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence

Full comparison of Fireworks AI and Stability AI — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Updated July 2026.

Fireworks AI

Production-grade open-source inference with fast cold starts

Fireworks AI provides optimised inference for open-weight models with a focus on production reliability and low latency. They host Llama, DeepSeek R1, and other popular open-source models with competitive per-token pricing and a serverless deployment model that minimises cold-start times.

ProductionReasoningSpeedOpen-sourceCoding
Open-weight hostHosts open weights

Stability AI

Open-weight image generation with Stable Diffusion

Stability AI is the creator of Stable Diffusion, the most widely used open-weight image generation model. Its API offers Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large and Stable Image Ultra for high-quality image generation.

Image generationImage editingInpaintingSelf-hosted AI art
Proprietary modelsHosts open weights

Key metrics

Cheapest input ($/1M)

Cheapest output ($/1M)

Peak throughput

Best latency (TTFT)

Intelligence score

Context window

Live token pricing

Strengths & weaknesses

Fireworks AI

320+ tokens/sec on Llama 3.3 70B — fast GPU inference
DeepSeek R1 hosting with strong reasoning capability
Production-grade reliability with SLAs
Serverless with minimal cold-start times
OpenAI-compatible API
Smaller model catalog than Together AI
No fine-tuning on standard plans
Slightly higher pricing than budget alternatives

Stability AI

Open-weight models available for self-hosting
Wide community and ecosystem
Competitive API pricing
Image quality trails DALL-E 3 and Midjourney on some benchmarks
Company has faced financial challenges

Key differentiators

Fireworks AI

Production-grade reliability with 320+ tokens/sec throughput and DeepSeek R1 reasoning at $3/1M input — a strong balance of speed and capability.

Stability AI

Stable Diffusion models are open-weight and can be self-hosted, making them the most flexible option for teams that need full control over their image generation pipeline.

Frequently asked questions

Fireworks AI FAQs

What models does Fireworks AI offer?

Fireworks AI hosts Llama 3.3 70B, DeepSeek R1, Mixtral, and other popular open-weight models. They focus on production-ready models with optimised inference rather than the broadest possible catalog.

How much does Fireworks AI cost?

Llama 3.3 70B costs $0.90/1M tokens (input and output). DeepSeek R1 is $3.00/1M input and $8.00/1M output. Pricing is competitive with other inference API providers.

How does Fireworks AI compare to Together AI?

Fireworks AI offers faster throughput (320 vs 190 tokens/sec on Llama 3.3 70B) and stronger production reliability. Together AI has a larger model catalog and fine-tuning support. Choose Fireworks for production speed, Together for model variety.

Stability AI FAQs

What is Stable Diffusion?

Stable Diffusion is an open-weight text-to-image model developed by Stability AI. It can be run locally or accessed via the Stability AI API, and has spawned a large ecosystem of fine-tuned variants.

How does Stability AI compare to DALL-E 3?

DALL-E 3 generally produces more photorealistic and instruction-following images out of the box. Stable Diffusion offers more flexibility through open weights, fine-tuning, and self-hosting.

Provider resources

Fireworks AIProduction-grade open-source inference with fast cold starts

Fireworks AI provides optimised inference for open-weight models with a focus on production reliability and low latency. They host Llama, DeepSeek R1, and other popular open-source models with competitive per-token pricing and a serverless deployment model that minimises cold-start times.

Production-grade reliability with 320+ tokens/sec throughput and DeepSeek R1 reasoning at $3/1M input — a strong balance of speed and capability.

Stability AIOpen-weight image generation with Stable Diffusion

Stability AI is the creator of Stable Diffusion, the most widely used open-weight image generation model. Its API offers Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large and Stable Image Ultra for high-quality image generation.

Stable Diffusion models are open-weight and can be self-hosted, making them the most flexible option for teams that need full control over their image generation pipeline.

Key strengths compared

Fireworks AI

  • 320+ tokens/sec on Llama 3.3 70B — fast GPU inference
  • DeepSeek R1 hosting with strong reasoning capability
  • Production-grade reliability with SLAs

Stability AI

  • Open-weight models available for self-hosting
  • Wide community and ecosystem
  • Competitive API pricing

Provider category context

Fireworks AI is a inference api, founded in 2022. Stability AI is a frontier lab, founded in 2020. Fireworks AI as an inference API provider hosts open-weight models — typically offering lower prices for equivalent capability tiers. Stability AI as a frontier lab trains and serves proprietary models with capabilities not available elsewhere.

How to choose between them

Choose Fireworks AI if you need 320+ tokens/sec on llama 3.3 70b — fast gpu inference. Choose Stability AI if you need open-weight models available for self-hosting. 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.