⚖️ Cloud vs Local Inference

Detailed comparison of cloud API providers vs self-hosted solutions for LLM inference.

Decision Factors

Factor☁️ Cloud🏠 LocalWinner For...
Latency
Time to get response		○ Depends✓ BetterPrivacy-sensitive use cases
Cost at Scale
Per-query cost efficiency		✓ Better○ DependsTeams without ML infra
Data Privacy
Control over sensitive data		○ Depends✓ BetterPrivacy-sensitive use cases
GDPR Compliance
EU regulation adherence		○ Depends✓ BetterPrivacy-sensitive use cases
Availability
99.9%+ uptime guarantees		✓ Better○ DependsTeams without ML infra
Auto-scaling
Handle traffic spikes		✓ Better○ DependsTeams without ML infra
Maintenance
Updates and patches		✓ Better○ DependsTeams without ML infra
Model Customization
Fine-tuning flexibility		○ Depends✓ BetterPrivacy-sensitive use cases

☁️ Cloud Providers

OpenAI

⚠️ US Data

Leading AI provider with GPT-4 and ChatGPT

Latency 500ms
Location USA
Pricing Per token
Models: GPT-4 TurboGPT-3.5 TurboGPT-4o

Anthropic

⚠️ US Data

Claude models focused on safety and helpfulness

Latency 600ms
Location USA
Pricing Per token
Models: Claude 3 OpusClaude 3 SonnetClaude 3 Haiku

Azure OpenAI (EU)

🇪🇺 GDPR OK

Microsoft-hosted OpenAI models with EU data residency

Latency 450ms
Location EU (Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden)
Pricing Per token + hosting
Models: GPT-4GPT-3.5 Turbo

Cloudflare Workers AI

🇪🇺 GDPR OK

Edge-deployed inference with global distribution

Latency 200ms
Location Edge (EU nodes available)
Pricing Free tier + per request
Models: Llama 3.1 8BLlama 3.3 70BMistral 7B

🏠 Local/On-Premise Solutions

Ollama

🔒 Full Control

Run LLMs locally with simple CLI interface

Latency 800ms
Location On-premises
Pricing Free (hardware costs)
Models: Llama 3.1MistralGemmaPhi-3

vLLM

🔒 Full Control

High-throughput LLM serving engine

Latency 150ms
Location On-premises
Pricing Free (hardware costs)
Models: Llama 3.1MistralQwenAny HF model

TensorRT-LLM

🔒 Full Control

NVIDIA optimized inference for maximum performance

Latency 100ms
Location On-premises
Pricing Free (NVIDIA GPU required)
Models: Llama 3.1MistralFalcon
💡 Our Recommendation

Start with Cloudflare Workers AI for edge-deployed inference with EU nodes, then evaluate local deployment (vLLM or TensorRT-LLM) when you need:

  • Processing highly sensitive data (medical, legal, financial)
  • High volume that makes per-token pricing expensive
  • Custom fine-tuned models
  • Complete audit trail and data lineage