OpenAI-compatible API
Build against a familiar chat-completions pattern using the `https://api.sambanova.ai/v1` base URL and bearer-key authentication.
SambaNova Cloud
Freemium
SambaNova Cloud is an AI inference platform that provides API access to open-source language and vision models. Developers can use its OpenAI-compatible API, playground, and model catalog to build and test AI-powered applications.
What is SambaNova Cloud?
SambaNova Cloud is an AI inference platform for developers building applications with hosted open-source models. Its core workflow is an OpenAI-compatible API that accepts chat-completion requests at SambaNova’s API endpoint. Users create a bearer-authenticated API key, keep it outside application code, and send requests from tools such as cURL or Python.
The service also includes a browser playground for trying prompts and viewing code, plus examples for connecting models to Gradio. Its documented catalog covers text, reasoning, and selected vision-capable models from DeepSeek, Meta, MiniMax, Google, and OpenAI model families. Published pricing is based on input and output token usage, with a cached-input price listed for MiniMax-M3.
What can SambaNova Cloud do?
Multiple hosted models
The catalog lists DeepSeek-V3.1, DeepSeek-V3.2, Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct, MiniMax-M3, gemma-4-31B-it, and gpt-oss-120b, with text, reasoning, and selected vision labels.
Streaming requests
The cURL quickstart demonstrates setting `stream` to true for a chat-completion request, allowing applications to work with streamed responses.
Browser playground
The playground provides a model-selection and prompt-testing workflow, with examples such as drafting an email, planning a trip, and writing code.
Python and cURL examples
The developer quickstart includes a cURL request and Python client example with message arrays, model selection, temperature, and top-p parameters.
Usage-based pricing
The published pricing table separates cached input, input, and output token rates by model; MiniMax-M3 is the only listed model with a cached-input rate.
Use Cases
“Prototype an AI application”
Use the playground to test prompts and model behavior before implementing the workflow in an application.
“Add chat completions to a developer project”
Use the OpenAI-compatible endpoint with cURL or Python to send system and user messages from an application backend.
“Build streamed interfaces”
Use the documented streaming request pattern as a starting point for interfaces that process chat-completion output incrementally.
“Compare model families for a task”
Evaluate listed DeepSeek, Meta, MiniMax, Google, and OpenAI models against text, reasoning, or vision-oriented requirements shown in the catalog.
“Create a quick Gradio demo”
Use the provided Gradio example to load a model and launch an interactive demo after supplying an API token.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I make a first request?
Create an API key in the SambaNova Cloud dashboard, store it in an environment variable such as `SAMBANOVA_API_KEY`, and send a request to `https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/chat/completions` with bearer authentication. The quickstart provides cURL and Python examples.
Which authentication method does the API use?
The documented requests use a bearer API key in the `Authorization` header. The site recommends keeping the key out of source code and reading it from the environment instead.
Which models are available?
The site lists DeepSeek-V3.1, DeepSeek-V3.2, Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct, MiniMax-M3, gemma-4-31B-it, and gpt-oss-120b. The catalog identifies models by supported task labels such as text, reasoning, or vision.
Can I test models without writing a full application?
Yes. SambaNova Cloud includes a playground with a model selector, prompt examples, and a View Code option. The site also provides a Gradio loading example for creating a simple interactive demo.
How is pricing presented?
The published table shows cached-input, input-per-one-million-tokens, and output-per-one-million-tokens rates by model. It does not establish quotas, plan limits, or other billing terms in the supplied source.
Quick Facts
- Product type
- AI inference platform
- Primary interface
- OpenAI-compatible API
- API endpoint
- https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/chat/completions
- Authentication
- Bearer API key
- Model access
- Hosted open-source models
- Pricing basis
- Per-token input and output rates
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