Head-to-head comparison
Cerebras InferencevsGroq
Cerebras and Groq are the two specialist inference providers built on custom silicon rather than Nvidia GPUs, and both serve open-weight models at speeds that make ordinary APIs feel slow. Groq's LPU chips popularised the category; Cerebras's wafer-scale processors now post the highest tokens-per-second figures on several models.
At a glance
| Cerebras Inference | Groq | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Coding | Chat |
| Function | Fast inference | Fast inference chat |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier with daily limits; pay per million tokens | Free chat playground, API pay-as-you-go from a few cents per million tokens |
| Editor rating | — | 4.5 / 5 |
| Released | August 2024 | July 2026 |
Cerebras Inference
Pros
- Speed is genuinely in a different class — reasoning steps feel instant
- Simple to swap in behind an OpenAI-style client
- Free tier is generous for prototypes
Cons
- Narrow model list compared with Together or Fireworks
- Capacity limits and queues on the free tier
- No fine-tuning or custom model hosting for most customers
Groq
Pros
- Speed is not marketing spin, it is noticeably faster than GPT or Claude chat
- Free tier is enough to actually get work done, not just a demo
- API pricing undercuts most GPU-based inference providers
Cons
- No access to closed frontier models like GPT or Claude
- Model selection depends on what Groq has bothered to host
- Speed advantage matters less for tasks that are thinking-bound, not typing-bound
Which one should you pick?
Pick Cerebras Inference if
You need the absolute fastest generation on a supported model, run reasoning workloads that produce very long outputs, or want enterprise dedicated capacity.
See Cerebras Inference details →Pick Groq if
You want a broader model catalogue, a larger developer community with more examples, or a free tier and pricing you already know from earlier projects.
See Groq details →Bottom line
Both are dramatically faster than general-purpose clouds. Cerebras edges the speed race on the models it hosts; Groq has more models and a bigger ecosystem. Check whether your model is on each before deciding.