# Moonshot AI API

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/moonshot/

9 people recommended Moonshot AI API in Hacker News comments, 3 had mixed feelings and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 12 months, in 10 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Cheap API access to near-frontier models, with many open-weight releases. Critics warn the terms are permissive and that API use may be used for training.

Summary written by Claude from 18 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 17 of those comments still count.

## Why people recommend it

- Much cheaper than US frontier models (4 comments in the sample): "Chinese companies like Moonshot.ai are doing fantastic work training frontier models for a fraction of the cost we're seeing from Anthropic/OpenAI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48198763)) "DeepSeek, Xiaomi and Moonshot are already really cheap and match frontier performance from 6 months ago." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48464306)) "the $100 Moonshot plan using only K3 is comparable to the $200 Anthropic deal" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49040835))
- Open weights releases and research sharing (4 comments in the sample): "Only ever viewed Moonshot AIs models as something I'd be able to live with open-weight-wise" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927098)) "Moonshot has been openly improving, sharing research, and providing weights for the models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49870590)) "support orgs that release open weights of their near-SOTA models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49563230))
- Competitive with US frontier models (1 comment in the sample): "the first two have models that are competitive with the US frontier ones" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47754565))

## What people warn about

- Permissive terms, possible training on API use (3 comments in the sample): "Most use the cheaper plans as bait to get more training data and free feedback." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48940992)) "their terms are excessively permissive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48939581)) "they appear to train even on API use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48939288))

## Other LLM APIs people recommend

- [Mistral](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mistral-large-4/): 206 recommend, 81 mixed, 205 criticize
- [DeepSeek API](https://hackerapproved.com/p/deepseek-api/): 147 recommend, 17 mixed, 49 criticize
- [OpenAI API](https://hackerapproved.com/p/openai-models/): 115 recommend, 41 mixed, 260 criticize
- [Cerebras Inference](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cerebras/): 63 recommend, 33 mixed, 47 criticize

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.moonshot.ai/)

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Moonshot AI API", https://hackerapproved.com/p/moonshot/ (9 recommend, 3 mixed, 5 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.