Runars vs Baseten

The GLM-5.3 you saw advertised. Hosted in Canada.

Baseten is a serious inference platform. But its per-token Model APIs run on its own cloud and bill in USD. Runars serves the same open models from Canadian data centres, billed in CAD.

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Credit where due

Baseten is fast, well funded and trusted by big AI teams. If you need dedicated GPU deployments of custom models, they're very good at it. If you want GLM-5.3 by the token with your data in Canada, keep reading.

Data residency

Zero border crossings.

Baseten offers region-locked deployments on its Enterprise tier. We don't publish a Canadian region because we don't need to: every Runars request runs in Canada by default, on every plan, starting at zero dollars.

request trace
  1. 1your app🇨🇦 Canada
  2. 2runars.ca/v1🇨🇦 Canada
  3. 3inference🇨🇦 Montreal · Calgary
  4. 4logs + prompt cache🇨🇦 Canada

border crossings: 0

Billing

Priced in dollars. Canadian ones.

Your invoice is in CAD with the right GST/HST/PST for your province, so finance doesn't reconcile a USD card charge against a moving exchange rate every month.

invoice.pdf
Usage (tokens)CAD
GST/HSTby province
CurrencyCAD
FX surprise$0.00

Compatibility

Keep your code. Change one URL.

Runars speaks both the OpenAI and Anthropic APIs natively. Swap the base URL and key; your SDK, your agents and Claude Code keep working.

app.py
client = Anthropic(
  base_url="https://runars.ca",
  api_key=os.environ["RUNARS_API_KEY"],
)

# OpenAI SDK works too — same key.

Head to head.

The short version, row by row. Every Baseten claim links to a source at the bottom of the page.

Canadian data residency
Runars
Inference, logs and prompt cache stay in Canada (Montreal & Calgary).
Baseten
Region-locked deployments on Enterprise; no published Canadian region.
Residency on every plan
Runars
Default for every account, from $0.
Baseten
Data-residency controls are an Enterprise feature.
Billing currency
Runars
Billed in CAD with GST/HST/PST by province. No FX line on your invoice.
Baseten
USD.
Anthropic Messages API
Runars
Native /v1/messages — point the Anthropic SDK or Claude Code at runars.ca.
Baseten
Available in beta.
OpenAI-compatible API
Runars
OpenAI-compatible /v1/chat/completions and /v1/responses.
Baseten
Yes.
GLM 5.3 · GLM 5.3 Flash · Kimi K3
Runars
GLM 5.3, GLM 5.3 Flash and Kimi K3, served from Canada.
Baseten
All three, via Model APIs.
Raw throughput
Runars
Solid for production agents; not our headline.
Baseten
Among the faster providers on Artificial Analysis.

Switch in one line.

Point your existing OpenAI or Anthropic SDK at Runars and keep your code. If we're not the right fit next to Baseten, we'll tell you.

base_url = "https://…"
base_url = "https://runars.ca/v1"
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Two minutes. No sales call.

Sources · checked 2026-09-25

Baseten is a trademark of its owner and is referenced here for comparison only. Competitor details change; check Baseten's site for current terms. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll fix it.