FriendliAI
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About
FriendliAI is a high-performance inference platform designed to optimize the serving of generative AI models. It addresses the core challenges of high latency and soaring GPU costs by providing a purpose-built software stack that sits between AI models and hardware infrastructure. The platform supports a vast ecosystem of models, including over 500,000 options from Hugging Face across language, audio, and vision domains, while also allowing users to bring their own proprietary or fine-tuned models. By focusing exclusively on the serving layer of the AI lifecycle, FriendliAI enables organizations to transition from research prototypes to production-grade APIs without the burden of managing complex GPU orchestration or manual performance tuning. The technical foundation of the platform relies on several model-level breakthroughs to maximize throughput and minimize response times. These include custom GPU kernels, smart caching, continuous batching, and speculative decoding, which work in tandem with infrastructure-level optimizations like multi-cloud scaling and geo-distributed clusters. Users can choose from three deployment modes: Serverless Endpoints for immediate, pay-as-you-go access; Dedicated Endpoints for isolated GPU resources with automatic scaling; and Container deployments for full control within a private environment. This flexibility ensures that inference remains efficient whether a team is testing a single prompt or scaling to trillions of tokens. This platform is primarily geared toward AI engineers, DevOps teams, and software developers who need to integrate large language models (LLMs) or multimodal models into reliable applications. It is particularly valuable for industries requiring high uptime and low tail latency, such as real-time customer service agents, automated coding assistants, and high-volume content generation tools. For enterprise users, the platform offers SOC2 compliance and a 99.99% uptime SLA, providing a robust environment for mission-critical workloads that cannot afford performance degradation during unpredictable traffic spikes. What differentiates FriendliAI from standard open-source inference engines like vLLM is its specialized performance architecture, which can achieve up to 3x faster inference speeds. These speed gains translate directly into cost efficiency, allowing companies to serve the same amount of traffic with roughly half the GPU resources typically required. Unique features such as Multi-LoRA support and zero-downtime model updates further simplify the operational overhead, making it a comprehensive solution for companies looking to scale their generative AI capabilities with enterprise-grade reliability.
Pros & Cons
Delivers up to 3x faster inference speeds compared to standard vLLM infrastructure.
Supports over 516,000 Hugging Face models with no manual optimization required.
Provides highly precise billing for dedicated GPUs, calculated down to the second.
Guarantees enterprise reliability with 99.99% uptime SLAs on global infrastructure.
Reduces operational costs by up to 50% through peak-efficiency execution.
Enterprise and Container pricing tiers are not transparent and require contacting sales.
Does not offer a permanent free usage tier, though promotional credits are sometimes available.
Advanced features like VPC and on-prem deployment are restricted to the Enterprise plan.
Use Cases
AI Engineers can deploy proprietary LLMs with sub-second latency and automated scaling to handle global user traffic.
DevOps teams can migrate from open-source engines to FriendliAI to reduce GPU costs by 50% while maintaining performance.
Product Owners at enterprise firms can utilize SOC2 compliant dedicated endpoints to ensure mission-critical AI features remain online.
Developers building coding agents can use the Serverless API to access frontier models like GLM-5 with minimal setup.
Software teams can perform zero-downtime model updates when transitioning from older versions to newer fine-tuned weights.
Platform
Task
Features
• soc2 compliance
• 99.99% uptime sla
• automatic traffic-based scaling
• zero-downtime model updates
• multi-lora support
• speculative decoding
• continuous batching
• custom gpu kernels
FAQs
Which models does FriendliAI support?
The platform supports over 516,000 Hugging Face models across language, audio, and vision categories with single-click deployment. Users can also bring their own fine-tuned or proprietary models for use on Dedicated Endpoints.
How is the billing calculated for dedicated resources?
Dedicated Endpoints are billed per second of GPU usage, with rates starting at $2.9/hour for an A100 80GB and up to $8.9/hour for a B200 192GB. There are no extra charges for start-up times, so you only pay for active compute.
What performance optimizations does the platform use?
FriendliAI utilizes a custom stack featuring continuous batching, speculative decoding, and optimized GPU kernels. These breakthroughs allow for 2-3x higher throughput and significantly lower tail latency compared to standard engines.
Can I deploy the tool within my own environment?
Yes, FriendliAI offers a Container product that allows you to run inference with full control and performance within your own infrastructure. This option is available for trial by contacting their engineering team.
Is FriendliAI secure for enterprise data?
FriendliAI is SOC2 compliant and designed with enterprise-grade fault tolerance. They offer dedicated security features including VPC deployment and 99.99% uptime SLAs for mission-critical workloads.
Pricing Plans
Serverless Endpoints
USD0.10 / per 1M tokens• Pay-per-token pricing
• Pay-per-second pricing for select models
• Instant API access
• Frontier model support (Llama-3, Qwen3, etc.)
• Vision and text support
• Built-in AI web search via Linkup
• No setup required
Dedicated Basic
USD2.90 / per hour• On-demand GPUs billed per second
• Custom and fine-tuned model support
• Automatic traffic-based scaling
• Zero-downtime model updates
• Multi-LoRA support
• SOC2 compliance
• Email and in-app chat support
• Real-time usage and log visibility
Dedicated Enterprise
Unknown Price• Reserved GPUs
• Priority access to high-demand GPU types
• Hands-on engineering expertise
• Dedicated Slack support
• VPC and on-prem deployment options
• 99.99% availability SLAs
• Custom global region deployment
Job Opportunities
There are currently no job postings for this AI tool.
Ratings & Reviews
No ratings available yet. Be the first to rate this tool!
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