Cradle vs EvolutionaryScale
A side-by-side comparison of Cradle and EvolutionaryScale, two Science tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
EvolutionaryScale
ScienceFrontier protein language models (the ESM family) for biology.
View EvolutionaryScaleAt a glance
| Attribute | Cradle | EvolutionaryScale |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Science | Science |
| Pricing (differs) | PAID | FREEMIUM |
| License (differs) | Proprietary | Open core |
| Deployment | Cloud | Cloud |
| Platforms (differs) | Web | API, Web |
| Model support | — | — |
| Vendor (differs) | Cradle | EvolutionaryScale |
| Capabilities (differs) |
|
|
The honest brief
Cradle
Self-serve web SaaS for protein engineering with per-customer models and an in-house wet lab — a usable product where most rivals are partnership-only.
- Self-serve web platform
- Multi-property optimization
- Per-customer models on your lab data
- Customers keep IP, no royalties
- Enterprise sales-led pricing
- No public free tier
- Needs customer wet-lab data
- Not a downloadable model
EvolutionaryScale
The team behind Meta's original ESM models, now shipping open ESM3 weights plus a hosted Forge API — research-grade openness with commercial serving.
- Open ESM3 weights
- Reasons over sequence/structure/function
- Served via AWS and NVIDIA partnerships
- Ex-Meta ESM team
- Open weights non-commercial only
- Forge in closed beta
- Largest models gated
- Pricing undisclosed
When to pick which
Both cover Protein design.
Pick Cradle if you need Fine-tuning / training.
- Fine-tuning / training (secondary capability)
Pick EvolutionaryScale if you need Model inference / serving.
- Model inference / serving (primary capability)
Cradle leans on Protein design as a headline capability; EvolutionaryScale treats it as secondary.
- Protein design (primary capability)
They also differ on:
- Pricing
- PAID · FREEMIUM
- License
- Proprietary · Open core
- Platforms
- Web · API, Web