Comparison guide

AI model APIs compared

Developer platforms and inference providers. Compare free quotas, per-token rates, SDKs and data retention.

Criterion	Perplexity	Stable Diffusion (Stability AI)	Hugging Face	ElevenLabs	DeepL
Provider	Perplexity AI	Stability AI	Hugging Face	ElevenLabs	DeepL SE
What it is for	An AI answer engine that searches the web and cites sources, with access to models from several providers on paid plans.	Stability AI's open-weight image models, also available through a credit-based API.	Hub for sharing open models, datasets and demo apps, with paid compute for inference and hosting.	Text-to-speech, voice cloning, transcription, music and voice agents from one platform and API.	An AI translator for text, documents and speech, with a writing assistant and a developer API.
Latest confirmed model	—	Stable Diffusion 3.5 (image); Stable Audio 3.0 (audio, May 2026) May 20, 2026	—	Eleven v4 Sep 28, 2026	—
Main capabilities	Cited answers Pro Search (Depends on plan) Research (Deep Research) (Depends on plan) Model Council (Depends on plan) Brain (Preview)	Stable Diffusion 3.5 suite Stable Image Ultra / Core API Editing, upscaling and control APIs Stable Audio 3.0 Stable Fast 3D	Model and dataset hub Spaces Inference Providers Inference Endpoints Team and Enterprise controls (Depends on plan)	Eleven v4 TTS Voice cloning (Depends on plan) Scribe speech-to-text Eleven Music ElevenAgents	Text and document translation (Depends on plan) Glossaries (Depends on plan) DeepL Write Pro (Depends on plan) DeepL Voice (Depends on plan) Translation memory (Depends on plan) API
Free plan	Yes 3 Pro Searches/day; 1 Research query/month; limited uploads	Yes Organisations or individuals under $1M annual revenue	Yes No included inference credits	Yes 10,000 credits/month (about 10 min TTS); 3 custom voice slots; 3 Studio projects	Yes 50,000 characters per user/month; 1 file translation/month (5 MB max); 1 glossary (5 entries per language pair)
Cheapest paid plan	Education Pro: $10/mo With SheerID student verification	No monthly list price	PRO: $9/mo	Starter: $6/mo $5/mo billed annually Promo first-month prices may apply	No monthly list price
API access	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)
Learning curve	Beginner-friendly	Technical	Some experience helps	Beginner-friendly	Beginner-friendly
Last verified	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026

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How to choose

Compare per-token rates for the model you will actually call, not the cheapest model on the page.
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Also in this group

OpenAI API

Pay-per-token developer access to OpenAI's GPT models for building apps, agents and automations.

Claude Developer Platform (Claude API)

Developer access to Anthropic's Claude models with usage-based pricing, batch discounts and prompt caching.

Gemini API and Google AI Studio

Google's developer API for Gemini models, with a free tier in Google AI Studio and paid tiers for production.

OpenRouter

One OpenAI-compatible API key for hundreds of models from many providers.

Together AI

Cloud platform for running, fine-tuning and training open models on serverless APIs or rented GPUs.

GroqCloud

Low-latency inference API for open models running on Groq's LPU hardware.

Ollama

Open-source tool for running open models on your own computer, with optional paid cloud models.

Replicate

Run and deploy open-source and custom AI models through an API, paying per second of hardware or per output.

The table shows up to five entries in the directory's editorial order, not a ranking. Every value links back to a record with sources and a last-verified date.