Vast.ai vs Lambda
A comparison of Vast.ai and Lambda built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- Pick Vast.ai if
- Price-sensitive training and batch inference that can tolerate a marketplace — the median H100 rate is well under half what the managed clouds charge, and interruptible capacity goes lower still.
- Pick Lambda if
- Renting exactly the instance shape you need — Lambda publishes 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x plans for the same card, so a single H100 is a real product rather than a fraction of a node.
3 sourced criteria separate them:
- H100 SXM, per GPU-hour
- Vast.ai: Median $2.16 per hour for H100 SXM 80GB, with a floor of $1.33 from the cheapest host. Vast is a marketplace — the floor is one host's offer at one moment and the median is what the market is actually charging, so both move without anyone announcing anything. This figure is a snapshot, not a rate card.
- Lambda: $4.29 per GPU-hour for H100 SXM 80GB on a single-GPU instance, falling to $3.99 on an 8-GPU node. The PCIe variant is $3.29.
- Cheapest GPU, per hour
- Vast.ai: Floor and median vary by card and by the hour; H100 PCIe runs from $1.87 with a median of $2.67, and H200 from $1.97 with a median of $4.24. The H200 floor now sits below the H100 PCIe median, which is the kind of inversion a marketplace produces and a rate card cannot.
- Lambda: $0.69 per GPU-hour for a Quadro RTX 6000 with 24GB; the V100 is $0.79 and the A6000 $1.09.
- Largest GPU offered
- Vast.ai: 192GB per GPU on B200, from $4.38 an hour with a median of $7.50.
- Lambda: 180GB per GPU on B200 SXM6, from $6.69 per GPU-hour on an 8-GPU node to $6.99 on a single GPU.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Vast.ai 0
Lambda 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Vast.ai | Lambda |
|---|---|---|
| GPU | ||
| H100 SXM, per GPU-hour | Median $2.16 per hour for H100 SXM 80GB, with a floor of $1.33 from the cheapest host. Vast is a marketplace — the floor is one host's offer at one moment and the median is what the market is actually charging, so both move without anyone announcing anything. This figure is a snapshot, not a rate card. | $4.29 per GPU-hour for H100 SXM 80GB on a single-GPU instance, falling to $3.99 on an 8-GPU node. The PCIe variant is $3.29. |
| Cheapest GPU, per hour | Floor and median vary by card and by the hour; H100 PCIe runs from $1.87 with a median of $2.67, and H200 from $1.97 with a median of $4.24. The H200 floor now sits below the H100 PCIe median, which is the kind of inversion a marketplace produces and a rate card cannot. | $0.69 per GPU-hour for a Quadro RTX 6000 with 24GB; the V100 is $0.79 and the A6000 $1.09. |
| Largest GPU offered | 192GB per GPU on B200, from $4.38 an hour with a median of $7.50. | 180GB per GPU on B200 SXM6, from $6.69 per GPU-hour on an 8-GPU node to $6.99 on a single GPU. |
Where they differ.
H100 SXM, per GPU-hour
- Vast.ai
- Median $2.16 per hour for H100 SXM 80GB, with a floor of $1.33 from the cheapest host. Vast is a marketplace — the floor is one host's offer at one moment and the median is what the market is actually charging, so both move without anyone announcing anything. This figure is a snapshot, not a rate card.
- Lambda
- $4.29 per GPU-hour for H100 SXM 80GB on a single-GPU instance, falling to $3.99 on an 8-GPU node. The PCIe variant is $3.29.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Vast.ai ↗
“H100 SXM Hopper 80GB VRAM from $1.33 /hr median $2.16/hr”
Read 2026-09-08 · official pricing
- GPU Cloud — Lambda ↗
“NVIDIA H100 SXM 80 GB 26 225 GiB 2.75 TiB SSD $4.29 NVIDIA H100 PCIe 80 GB 26 225 GiB 1 TiB SSD $3.29 [...] 8x Plan [...] NVIDIA H100 SXM 80 GB 208 2900 GiB 22 TiB SSD $3.99”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Cheapest GPU, per hour
- Vast.ai
- Floor and median vary by card and by the hour; H100 PCIe runs from $1.87 with a median of $2.67, and H200 from $1.97 with a median of $4.24. The H200 floor now sits below the H100 PCIe median, which is the kind of inversion a marketplace produces and a rate card cannot.
- Lambda
- $0.69 per GPU-hour for a Quadro RTX 6000 with 24GB; the V100 is $0.79 and the A6000 $1.09.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Vast.ai ↗
“H100 PCIE Hopper 80GB VRAM from $1.87 /hr median $2.67/hr [...] H200 Hopper 141GB VRAM from $1.97 /hr median $4.24/hr”
Read 2026-09-08 · official pricing
- GPU Cloud — Lambda ↗
“NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 24 GB 14 46 GiB 512 GiB SSD $0.69 [...] NVIDIA Tesla V100 16 GB 88 448 GiB 5.8 TiB SSD $0.79 [...] NVIDIA A6000 48 GB 14 100 GiB 512 GiB SSD $1.09”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Largest GPU offered
192GB per GPU on B200, from $4.38 an hour with a median of $7.50.
180GB per GPU on B200 SXM6, from $6.69 per GPU-hour on an 8-GPU node to $6.99 on a single GPU.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Vast.ai ↗
“B200 Blackwell 192GB VRAM from $4.38 /hr median $7.50/hr”
Read 2026-09-08 · official pricing
- GPU Cloud — Lambda ↗
“NVIDIA B200 SXM6 180 GB 208 2900 GiB 22 TiB SSD $6.69 [...] NVIDIA B200 SXM6 180 GB 26 360 GiB 2.75 TiB SSD $6.99”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Which should you choose?
Choose Vast.ai if…
Price-sensitive training and batch inference that can tolerate a marketplace — the median H100 rate is well under half what the managed clouds charge, and interruptible capacity goes lower still.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Lambda if…
Renting exactly the instance shape you need — Lambda publishes 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x plans for the same card, so a single H100 is a real product rather than a fraction of a node.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Vast.ai: There is no single price to plan against: rates move with supply, the host is not Vast itself, and an interruptible instance can be reclaimed mid-run.
- Lambda: Its H100 SXM is the most expensive per GPU-hour in this set at $4.29 single-card, and there is no published reserved discount to bring it down.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
Questions this comparison answers.
Should I choose Vast.ai or Lambda?
Pick Vast.ai if Price-sensitive training and batch inference that can tolerate a marketplace — the median H100 rate is well under half what the managed clouds charge, and interruptible capacity goes lower still.
Pick Lambda if Renting exactly the instance shape you need — Lambda publishes 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x plans for the same card, so a single H100 is a real product rather than a fraction of a node.