Modal
Serverless cloud for AI/ML — Python-decorator workflow defines GPU/CPU functions deployed to managed infra; widely used for training jobs, batch inference, and agent backends.
Active · Verified 2026-10-27 · fresh as of 2026-10-27 · 23 cited facts, 1 with a third-party source · 1 recorded change · Suggest a correction
At a glance
- Type
- Serverless compute / inference vendor fix
- Tier
- T1
- Section
- Inference platforms & gateways
- Latest release
- v1.6.2 (2026-10-16) — modal registry fix
- License
- proprietary; client SDK Apache-2.0 repo fix
- Pricing
- Starter $0 + compute ($30/mo free credits); Team $250/mo + compute ($100/mo credits); Enterprise custom; usage per second (e.g. H100 $0.001097/sec) vendor fix
- Funding
- $96M total raised through Series A 2024-03 ($80M, Lux + Redpoint led; $1B+ valuation). vendor fix
- Freshness
- 2026-10-27 fix
- Layer
- model-infra repo fix
- Licensing
- commercial repo fix
- SDK languages
- go, python, typescript vendor fix
- Protocols
- opentelemetry vendor fix
- Compliance
- soc2-type2 vendor fix
- Developer activity
- OpenRank 1.38 (12-mo avg 20.39) · 13 participants — 2026-09 third-party fix
When to use
Optimised for: searched not found
Anti-fit: searched not found
Pros & cons
Pros
searched not found
Cons
searched not found
Claims & capabilities
$80M Series B 2024-08 at $1B; serverless GPU on-demand with sub-second cold starts.
Technical surface
- API surface
- Python SDK
- Backend storage
- not applicable — not a memory product
- Deployment
- Managed-only — serverless cloud
- Embedding model
- not applicable — not a memory product
- Multi-tenancy
- searched not found
- MCP
- searched not found
- A2A
- searched not found
- OpenTelemetry
- searched not found
Similar systems
Other inference platforms & gateways in the catalog, ranked by inbound references.
- LiteLLM T1
BerriAI's open-source LLM gateway — unified OpenAI-format API for 100+ providers; LiteLLM Proxy adds budgets, fallbacks, observability, rate-limiting.
- OpenRouter T1
Unified API + marketplace for 300+ models — pay-as-you-go credits, automatic fallback, model arena. Used as default LLM router by many JS/TS agents.
- Together AI T1
Cloud platform for OSS LLM inference and fine-tuning — serverless inference, dedicated endpoints, fine-tuning API, training cluster.
- Fireworks AI T1
Fast inference platform for OSS LLMs — custom Cuda kernels, speculative decoding, multi-LoRA serving. Targets latency-sensitive production use cases.
- vLLM T1
Open-source LLM inference engine with PagedAttention — high-throughput batching, paged KV-cache. UC Berkeley origin; de-facto OSS inference stack.
- Portkey AI T2
AI gateway + observability — load balancing across 200+ LLMs, retries, caching, eval, prompts. Open-source Gateway + commercial Portkey Cloud. Acquired by Palo Alto Networks (closed about 2026-06); now sold as Prisma AIRS AI Gateway (GA 2026-07-16).
Sources (22 cited facts, 1 third-party)
Each fact links to the page it came from; the badge says who published it (how to read sources).
- What it is Serverless compute / inference vendor
- What it does & what's distinct Serverless cloud for AI/ML — Python-decorator workflow defines GPU/CPU functions deploye… vendor
- Claims / benefits $80M Series B 2024-08 at $1B; serverless GPU on-demand with sub-second cold starts. vendor
- Created 2021 vendor
- Latest release v1.6.2 (2026-10-16) — modal registry
- License proprietary; client SDK Apache-2.0 repo
- GitHub modal-labs/modal-client — ~530 stars, last commit 2026-10 repo
- Funding $96M total raised through Series A 2024-03 ($80M, Lux + Redpoint led; $1B+ valuation). vendor
- Customers / scale Suno, Substack, Ramp, Cohere, Quora, Anyscale; serverless GPU compute. vendor
- Pricing Starter $0 + compute ($30/mo free credits); Team $250/mo + compute ($100/mo credits); En… vendor
- Deployment Managed-only — serverless cloud vendor
- HQ New York, NY, USA. vendor
- Founders / pedigree Erik Bernhardsson (CEO; ex-Spotify, Better.com, Luigi creator), Akshat Bubna; founded 20… vendor
- API surface Python SDK registry
- architecture-deployment-locus cloud vendor
- licensing-bucket commercial repo
- positioning-platform-vs-product platform vendor
- taxonomy-three-layer-rollup model-infra repo
- developer-activity-opendigger {"activity":17.21,"as_of":"2026-09","openrank_12mo":20.39,"openrank_current":1.38,"parti… third-party
- compliance-certifications soc2-type2 vendor
- sdk-languages go,python,typescript vendor
- protocol-support opentelemetry vendor
What changed
Changes to this record's lifecycle, licence, release, pricing and hosting facts, from the catalog's git history. Subscribe (Atom)
- 2026-10-27
- License first recorded as “proprietary; client SDK Apache-2.0” source
- Latest release first recorded as “v1.6.2 (2026-10-16) — modal” source
- Pricing first recorded as “Starter $0 + compute ($30/mo free credits); Team $250/mo + compute ($100/mo credits); Enterprise custom; usage per second (e.g. H100 $0.001097/sec)” source
- Deployment first recorded as “Managed-only — serverless cloud” source
Related systems
References (4)
- Cursor (IDE) integrates with — Modal's examples include running Cursor Cloud Agents on Modal. (verified 2026-10-29)
- LangGraph (orchestration) integrates with — Modal's examples include sandboxing a LangGraph agent's code on Modal. (verified 2026-10-29)
- SGLang integrates with — Modal's examples include serving models with SGLang on Modal. (verified 2026-10-29)
- vLLM integrates with — Modal's examples include deploying an OpenAI-compatible LLM service with vLLM on Modal. (verified 2026-10-29)
Referenced by (4)
- Arize Phoenix integrates with — Arize Phoenix docs have a Modal integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- LangChain (framework) integrates with — LangChain docs have a Modal integration provider page (Serverless cloud computing for data science). (verified 2026-10-29)
- OpenRouter integrates with — OpenRouter lists Modal as an inference provider (providers API slug "modal"). (verified 2026-10-29)
- Portkey AI integrates with — Portkey docs have a Modal Labs LLM provider integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)