Moonshot AI API
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 8 of 10 LLM APIs by recommenders
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.
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.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 74%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Much cheaper than US frontier models
“Chinese companies like Moonshot.ai are doing fantastic work training frontier models for a fraction of the cost we're seeing from Anthropic/OpenAI.”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “Gemini 3.5: frontier intelligence with action” “DeepSeek, Xiaomi and Moonshot are already really cheap and match frontier performance from 6 months ago.”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Claude Fable 5” “the $100 Moonshot plan using only K3 is comparable to the $200 Anthropic deal”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Claude Opus 5” - Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “The Unbearable Frustration of Figuring Out APIs”
Open weights releases and research sharing
“Only ever viewed Moonshot AIs models as something I'd be able to live with open-weight-wise”
Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Inkling: Our Open-Weights Model” “Moonshot has been openly improving, sharing research, and providing weights for the models”
Comment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1” “support orgs that release open weights of their near-SOTA models”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Which tools do Claude, Codex and Cursor choose? We measured 17k runs to find out” - Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “DeepSeek-V4-Flash Update”
Competitive with US frontier models
“DeepSeek, Xiaomi and Moonshot are already really cheap and match frontier performance from 6 months ago.”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Claude Fable 5” “the $100 Moonshot plan using only K3 is comparable to the $200 Anthropic deal”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Claude Opus 5” “the first two have models that are competitive with the US frontier ones”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “European AI. A playbook to own it. By Mistral”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Permissive terms, possible training on API use
“Most use the cheaper plans as bait to get more training data and free feedback.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Kimi K3 is now live” “their terms are excessively permissive”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Kimi K3 is now live” “they appear to train even on API use”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Kimi K3 is now live”
Other LLM APIs people recommend
The four most recommended other LLM APIs, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mistral | 314 | 245 | 56% | 13 | 6 mo9 owners | — |
| DeepSeek API | 171 | 56 | 75% | 11 | 1 mo9 owners | Approved |
| OpenAI API | 166 | 286 | 37% | 13 | 9 mo7 owners | — |
| Anthropic API | 58 | 126 | 32% | 12 | — | — |
| Moonshot AI APIThis page | 14 | 5 | 74% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
18 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Moonshot has been openly improving, sharing research, and providing weights for the models”
“they might have worse security than Anthropic and your personal info gets leaked”
“support orgs that release open weights of their near-SOTA models”
“Moonshot have been very consistent with open weights”
“Deepseek and moonshot are the only two providers I consent to training for.”
“So cheers to Moonshot and Qwen and whoever else.”
“OpenAI plans are much more generous than both Moonshot's and Anthropic's.”
“the $100 Moonshot plan using only K3 is comparable to the $200 Anthropic deal”
“Most use the cheaper plans as bait to get more training data and free feedback.”
“their terms are excessively permissive”
“they appear to train even on API use”
“Only ever viewed Moonshot AIs models as something I'd be able to live with open-weight-wise”
“DeepSeek, Xiaomi and Moonshot are already really cheap and match frontier performance from 6 months ago.”
“Chinese companies like Moonshot.ai are doing fantastic work training frontier models for a fraction of the cost we're seeing from Anthropic/OpenAI.”
“the first two have models that are competitive with the US frontier ones”
“Moonshot/IETF ABFAB failed”
“MiniMax, DeepSeek, and Moonshot are all releasing models for the public to use for free.”
“Chinese APIs like Moonshot and DeepSeek have extremely cheap pricing”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.