# AI platforms and infrastructure

A guide to notable AI platforms, spanning model marketplaces, fast inference clouds, local runtimes, and enterprise cloud services, grouped by deployment model.

Canonical URL: https://globalaiproductindex.com/guides/best-ai-platforms/

## Model marketplaces and gateways

- [OpenRouter](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/openrouter/) (OpenRouter) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Paid, launched 2023. Unified API gateway that routes requests to hundreds of large language models from many providers.
- [Hugging Face](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/hugging-face/) (Hugging Face, Inc.) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Freemium, launched 2016. Platform hosting machine learning models, datasets, and demo apps, centered on open-source AI.
- [Replicate](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/replicate/) (Replicate) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Paid, launched 2019. Platform for running and deploying open-source machine learning models via a hosted API.
- [Poe](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/poe/) (Quora) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Freemium, launched 2023-02. Platform from Quora providing access to multiple AI chatbots and models through a single interface.

## Fast inference clouds

- [Groq](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/groq/) (Groq) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Freemium, launched 2024-02. AI inference platform powered by custom LPU hardware for very low-latency serving of open language models.
- [Fireworks AI](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/fireworks-ai/) (Fireworks AI) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Paid, launched 2023. Inference platform for fast serving and fine-tuning of open-source generative AI models.
- [Together AI](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/together-ai/) (Together AI) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Paid, launched 2023. Cloud platform for running, fine-tuning, and hosting open-source AI models via serverless and dedicated endpoints.
- [Cerebras](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/cerebras/) (Cerebras Systems) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Freemium, launched 2024-08. AI compute company whose inference cloud serves open language models on wafer-scale hardware.

## Local and self-hosted runtimes

- [Ollama](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/ollama/) (Ollama) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Open (open weights/source), launched 2023-07. Open-source tool for running open large language models locally on your own machine with a simple command-line interface.
- [LM Studio](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/lm-studio/) (LM Studio) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Free, launched 2023. Desktop application for discovering, downloading, and running open large language models locally.
- [Jan](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/jan/) (Homebrew (formerly Menlo Research)) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Open (open weights/source), launched 2023. Open-source desktop app for running open language models locally as an offline ChatGPT alternative.
- [vLLM](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/vllm/) (vLLM Project) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Open (open weights/source), launched 2023-06. Open-source inference and serving engine for large language models, known for high-throughput PagedAttention.
- [Open WebUI](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/open-webui/) (Open WebUI) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Open (open weights/source), launched 2023. Extensible, self-hosted AI interface that runs offline and connects to local or remote models such as Ollama and OpenAI-compatible APIs.

## LLM app and agent builders

- [Dify](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/dify/) (LangGenius) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Open (open weights/source), launched 2023. Open-source platform for building LLM applications with visual agent workflows, RAG pipelines, and model management.

## Enterprise cloud AI services

- [Amazon Bedrock](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/amazon-bedrock/) (Amazon Web Services) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Paid, launched 2023-09. Managed AWS service for building applications with foundation models from multiple providers via one API.
- [Amazon Nova](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/amazon-nova/) (Amazon Web Services) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Paid, launched 2024-12. AWS portfolio of Amazon-built foundation models and services for text, multimodal, speech, custom model building, and UI-automating agents.
- [Azure AI Foundry](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/azure-ai-foundry/) (Microsoft) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Paid, launched 2024-11. Microsoft's platform for building, evaluating, and deploying AI applications and agents on Azure.
- [Vertex AI](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/vertex-ai/) (Google) — Platforms & Infrastructure, Paid, launched 2021-05. Google Cloud's platform for training, tuning, and serving machine learning and generative AI models.

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Data from the [Global AI Product Index](https://globalaiproductindex.com/), licensed CC BY 4.0.