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Claude vs Groq

Two sides of the LLM API decision: model provider and open models, hosted. When each fits, what it costs, who moves from one to the other, and what makers who chose it say.

ClaudeModel providerllms.txtIn Lovable, Replit
GroqOpen models, hosted
Ask your AI about this, with this page as the source:ChatGPT ↗Claude ↗Perplexity ↗

Which fits you

Choose Claude if
  • You want the strongest general models and the widest ecosystem of examples and integrations

Use it whenYour feature is an agent that calls tools, writes code or works through long documents.

Trade-offNo image generation or embedding models of its own, so those need a second provider.

Choose Groq if
  • Token cost dominates your budget, for example high-volume batch or agent workloads

Use it whenResponse speed matters more than having the most capable model, as in voice or autocomplete.

Trade-offOnly the open models it chooses to host, and no frontier closed models.

At a glance

ClaudeGroq
Used by251 makers' products · 285 open-source projects39 makers' products · 62 open-source projects
Cost at default usageinput tokens 50 million tokens, output tokens 10 million tokens$10/mo Claude Haiku 5.5$6.75/mo GPT OSS 20B
Moved to it on GitHubpull requests since Oct 202410 from Groq15 from Claude
Downloads31.6M/wk4.1× vs npm1.8M/wk3.9× vs npm
PricingPay per token. · paid from Pay per tokenFree tier with rate limits; pay per token. · paid from Pay per token
Free tierNoYes
Open sourceNoNo
Incidents, 90 daysfrom its status page50+ (21 major)no public status feed

Cost as you grow

At 1M tokens Groq costs less ($0.14 vs $0.20); and still does at 5B tokens ($675 vs $1,000). They're different kinds of tool — model provider and open models, hosted — so the prices don't buy the same thing.

$0$20$100$500$1,0001510501005001k5k
GroqClaudex: input tokens per month (million tokens), other usage scaled with it · cheapest usable plan at each point, list prices · try your own numbers
The numbers, plan by plan
Input tokens per monthClaudeGroq
1$0.20 Claude Haiku 5.5$0.14 GPT OSS 20B
5$1.00 Claude Haiku 5.5$0.68 GPT OSS 20B
10$2.00 Claude Haiku 5.5$1.35 GPT OSS 20B
50$10 Claude Haiku 5.5$6.75 GPT OSS 20B
100$20 Claude Haiku 5.5$14 GPT OSS 20B
500$100 Claude Haiku 5.5$68 GPT OSS 20B
1,000$200 Claude Haiku 5.5$135 GPT OSS 20B
5,000$1,000 Claude Haiku 5.5$675 GPT OSS 20B

From each vendor's pricing page: Claude, Groq.

Who moves from one to the other

Public pull requests on GitHub since Oct 2024 whose title says "Claude to Groq" or the reverse — real code changes, by developers in general rather than makers only.

Groq → Claude10 PRs
All matching pull requests on GitHub ↗
Claude → Groq15 PRs
All matching pull requests on GitHub ↗

What makers say

Makers on using it for LLM API, from Product Hunt and Starter Story interviews, each linked to the source. Products with a page of their own and fuller notes first.

On Claude
Taskade Genesis works beautifully with Claude. It brings strong reasoning and long-range thinking to any Genesis app, helping systems plan, adapt, and make sense of complex inputs.
Taskade, the makerSep 2026 ↗
We're excited about Claude-3.5 Sonnet and the upcoming 3.5 Opus. We'll introduce Opus to AICamp users upon release. We use Sonnet for its superior pair programming capabilities.
AICamp, the makerSep 2026 ↗
Huge shoutout to the Anthropic team — their Claude models are the backbone of some of our agents. Fast, reliable, and beautifully open‑source. Exactly what the AI world needs more of.
Calk AI, the makerSep 2026 ↗
149 more on the Claude page →
On Groq
Shoutout to Groq — the lightning fast inference engine running Voicr's AI under the hood. Without Groq's speed, that under 3 seconds promise wouldn't be possible.
Voicr for Mac, the makerSep 2026 ↗
We love using Groq hosting and models. They are a core part of our chat and widget agents. The models are lightning fast and the Groq team is fantastic.
Vectorize, the makerSep 2026 ↗
Groq powers our RAG sandbox with their lightning fast inference APIs and the team there is helpful and amazing to work with.
Vectorize, the makerSep 2026 ↗
14 more on the Groq page →

Loved and watch-outs

Themes that recur in makers' words and Hacker News comments, each linked to what it summarises.

Claude
Most loved
  • It is strong at writing code and powers many code generation and coding agent products. PHPH 2PH 3PH 4
  • It stays coherent through long, multi-step reasoning and agent workflows. PHPH 2PH 3PH 4
  • Its writing sounds natural and matches a user's tone rather than reading as AI-generated. PHPH 2PH 3PH 4
Watch-outs
  • Outages are frequent, with uptime below three nines across the API and apps. HNHN 2HN 3HN 4
  • API pricing is a large multiple of subscription pricing, making heavy agent use expensive. HNHN 2HN 3
  • Postmortems confirmed periods of degraded output, including a lowered default reasoning effort in Claude Code. HN
On Product Hunt: 5.0★, 1,012 reviews · mentioned most: AI assistant, code generation, contextual understanding · complaints: message limits, typography issues
Groq
Most loved
  • Inference is extremely fast, enabling real-time voice and agent workflows. PHPH 2PH 3PH 4
  • The free tier is generous, with many models to choose from. PHPH 2HN
  • Its hosted Whisper gives near-instant transcription. PHPH 2HNPH 3
On Product Hunt: 4.8★, 5 reviews

Who uses each

Claude251 makers' products
8baseAccordio AIAgentcardAgentplace.ioAgentXAI Code Reviews by MatterAIAI EmailyAICampAirial TravelAirKarenAnythingAstrid+239 more
Groq39 makers' products
AntispaceAutomaticallBebop.aiClarityUXExtra ThursdayFriends & Fablesgraph8KushoAILagrange by OrangeCatMagineMentaraMindPal+27 more
Used by both — often one replacing the other, or each for a different part of the product
Bebop.aiMindPalSlashySymvol Video AI for EducationVamah.aiinbox-zeroOmnifactPretty PromptSkyeSlashspace AIFeaturebasePlane

What makers pair each with

With Claude
Transactional Email
Frontend Framework
Hosting
Payments
With Groq
Frontend Framework
Transactional Email
Hosting
Payments

Neither quite right?

See the whole LLM API decision →
OpenAI APIModel providerThe broadest model lineup — text, images, speech, embeddings — and the largest ecosystem.vs Claude →vs Groq →
Gemini APIModel providerVery long context and multimodal input, with a free tier to start.vs Claude →vs Groq →
Mistral AIModel providerA European provider whose API covers chat, coding, OCR and speech models.vs Claude →
DeepSeekModel providerLow per-token prices on strong reasoning and coding models, with OpenAI- and Anthropic-format endpoints.vs Claude →
OpenRouterGateway (many providers, one API)Trying many models from many providers with one API key and one bill, without opening an account at each.vs Claude →vs Groq →
LiteLLMGateway (many providers, one API)Running your own OpenAI-compatible proxy in front of your own provider keys, with retries, routing and per-key budgets.