Cerebrium vs Modal
A side-by-side comparison of Cerebrium and Modal, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
Cerebrium
InfraServerless GPU infrastructure for real-time AI — voice, video, and LLM workloads.
View CerebriumAt a glance
| Attribute | Cerebrium | Modal |
|---|---|---|
| Category (differs) | Infra | Inference |
| Pricing (differs) | PAID | FREEMIUM |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Deployment | Cloud | Cloud |
| Platforms | API, CLI | API, CLI |
| Model support | Model-agnostic | Model-agnostic |
| Vendor (differs) | Cerebrium | Modal Labs |
| Capabilities (differs) |
|
|
The honest brief
Cerebrium
Tuned for real-time voice and video agents, where its fast cold starts and multi-region failover beat general-purpose GPU clouds.
- 2–4s cold starts, scale-to-zero
- 12+ GPU types up to B200
- Multi-region deploys + failover
- SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR compliant
- $100/mo base on the Standard tier
- Hobby tier capped at 3 apps, 5 GPUs
- Younger platform, smaller community
Modal
Define GPU infra in Python decorators with 2-4s cold starts — no YAML, Dockerfiles, or managed-stack lock-in.
- Python-decorator infra, no YAML/Dockerfiles
- Scale-to-zero, pay only when running
- Scales to hundreds of GPUs
- Free monthly starter credits
- SDK lock-in; migrating means rewriting
- No managed vLLM/TensorRT setup
- Costs climb under heavy usage
- Billing hard to predict
When to pick which
Modal leans on GPU compute as a headline capability; Cerebrium treats it as secondary.
- GPU compute (primary capability)
They also differ on:
- Pricing
- PAID · FREEMIUM
Their capability lists differ in recorded depth — compare the full lists above before deciding.