Crusoe AI alternatives

If you’re looking into Crusoe AI alternatives, you’re probably in one of two boats. Either you're ready to roll up your sleeves and build custom AI models from the ground up, or you just want to use AI to solve a business problem without the massive engineering headache.

Crusoe offers some serious power for the builders out there. But what if you just want the results?

This guide is for both of you. We'll look at the top direct competitors to Crusoe if you need raw GPU power and AI infrastructure. But we'll also talk about a different path: a ready-to-use AI platform that automates customer support and sorts out your internal knowledge, letting you skip the build phase entirely and get straight to the good stuff.

Let's get into it.

What is Crusoe AI?

In a nutshell, Crusoe is an "AI factory company." They provide the heavy-duty computing infrastructure you need to train, build, and run complex AI models. Think of them as a specialized cloud provider, like AWS or Google Cloud, but with a laser focus on AI workloads.

They give you access to the latest NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, all housed in data centers built for AI. A cool part of their story is their focus on sustainable energy. They got famous for using stranded natural gas (the stuff that usually gets burned off) to power their operations, which helps cut down on methane emissions.

Simply put, Crusoe gives AI engineers the raw power to build what's next in AI.

How we picked the best Crusoe AI alternatives

To give you a fair shake, we looked at these alternatives based on what you might actually be trying to accomplish. Not every platform is made for the same job, so we split our thinking into two main camps.

If you’re looking for a direct infrastructure replacement, we focused on things like raw performance. Do they have the latest and greatest GPUs, like NVIDIA's H100s and B200s? Is their network fast enough for huge training jobs? We also looked at pricing (is it transparent?), scalability (can you get GPUs when you need them?), and the overall developer experience.

But if you're looking for a solution that just works, our criteria changed. We prioritized speed. How fast can you get it running and actually see results? Does it play nicely with the tools you already use, like your help desk and internal docs? And finally, how much control do you have? Can you tell the AI what it should and shouldn't know?

A quick comparison of the top Crusoe AI alternatives in 2025

Company	Best For	Key Feature	Pricing Model
eesel AI	Customer support & ITSM teams who want ready-made AI	No-code integration with 100+ tools	Tiered, predictable monthly subscription
CoreWeave	AI startups and enterprises needing specialized GPU clusters	Kubernetes-native platform	On-demand & reserved hourly billing
Voltage Park	Large-scale AI training with bare-metal performance	Massive inventory of NVIDIA H100 GPUs	Competitive on-demand hourly rates
Lambda Labs	Teams needing both cloud GPUs and on-prem hardware	GPU cloud and physical hardware sales	On-demand & reserved hourly billing
RunPod	Developers and researchers looking for affordable GPUs	Low-cost community cloud model	Pay-per-second billing
Google Cloud	Enterprises needing massive scale and diverse AI tools	Access to GPUs and custom TPUs	Pay-as-you-go with commitment discounts
Vultr	General-purpose cloud computing with global reach	Wide network of data centers	Predictable monthly/hourly rates

The 7 best Crusoe AI alternatives in 2025

Here’s a closer look at the top alternatives to Crusoe, starting with an option for teams who want to use AI without having to build it from the ground up.

1. eesel AI

Alright, full disclosure: eesel AI isn't a direct, apples-to-apples competitor to Crusoe. You don't come to eesel to rent GPUs. Instead, eesel AI is for teams who see the potential of Crusoe's power and think, "I'd love those results, but I don't have a team of 20 engineers to get me there."

It’s an AI platform designed for customer service and internal support that plugs straight into the tools you’re already using, like Zendesk, Slack, Confluence, and Google Docs. Instead of building an AI support agent from scratch on Crusoe's infrastructure, eesel gives you one that’s pretty much ready to go in minutes. It reads through your past support tickets, help articles, and internal docs to provide instant, accurate answers.

What's great about it:

• You can go live in minutes, not months. It’s genuinely self-serve. You can connect your help desk and knowledge sources with a few clicks and have a working AI agent without ever needing to talk to a salesperson.

• It pulls all your knowledge together. It trains on past tickets to get your brand voice right and connects to over 100 sources like Notion and Shopify, so its answers are always based on your real information.

An infographic showing how eesel AI, a top Crusoe AI alternative, integrates with over 100 knowledge sources to provide comprehensive answers.

• You can test it risk-free. There's a cool simulation mode that lets you test the AI on thousands of your old tickets. This shows you how it would have performed and what its resolution rate could be before you turn it on for customers.

A screenshot of the eesel AI simulation mode, a key feature that makes it one of the best Crusoe AI alternatives for risk-free testing.

• Pricing is predictable. The plans are based on usage tiers, not how many tickets it resolves. This means your bill won't suddenly jump if you have a busy month.

A screenshot of eesel AI's transparent pricing page, a key advantage for those considering Crusoe AI alternatives.

What to consider:

• It’s not an IaaS provider, so you can't rent raw computing power from them.

• It’s built specifically for customer service, ITSM, and internal support teams.

Pricing:

• Team Plan: Starts at $299/month ($239/month if billed annually) for 1,000 AI interactions, 3 bots, and integrations.

• Business Plan: $799/month ($639/month if billed annually) gets you up to 3,000 interactions, unlimited bots, and adds training on past tickets and more advanced features.

• Custom: They also offer enterprise plans for bigger needs.

2. CoreWeave

CoreWeave is a big name in the specialized cloud space and a very direct Crusoe AI alternative. Their platform was designed specifically for massive AI and machine learning workloads. They offer a huge range of NVIDIA GPUs, from the A100s to the latest H100s and Blackwell series. Tech teams often like them because their infrastructure is Kubernetes-native, which makes it easier for DevOps to manage complex jobs.

• Pros:

  • Massive selection of the latest NVIDIA GPUs.

  • Built for high-performance, large-scale AI work.

  • Lots of flexibility with storage and networking.

• Cons:

  • Can get a bit pricey for on-demand use compared to smaller guys.

  • Might be overkill if you're just running a small project.

• Pricing: CoreWeave's pricing is on-demand and billed by the hour, though you can get discounts for reserving capacity. A single NVIDIA H100 GPU runs about $4.25/hour, while a beefy server with eight of them costs around $49.24/hour.

3. Voltage Park

Voltage Park keeps things simple. They do one thing, and they do it very well: provide large clusters of NVIDIA H100 GPUs for machine learning. They give you bare-metal access, which means there's no software layer in between you and the hardware to slow things down. Their whole model is about making top-tier computing power accessible without locking you into long contracts.

• Pros:

  • Pricing is competitive and easy to understand.

  • You get maximum performance with bare-metal access.

  • It's a no-fuss way to get your hands on some of the most powerful GPUs out there.

• Cons:

  • They're mostly focused on H100s, so there are fewer options for other GPU types.

  • Their data centers are all in the U.S.

• Pricing: Voltage Park's on-demand pricing starts at $1.99/hour for a single H100 GPU. If you need a cluster with faster networking, it's $2.49/hour per GPU.

4. Lambda Labs

Lambda Labs is a well-respected name in the machine learning community. They offer a GPU cloud but also let you buy or rent physical hardware to use on-premise. This makes them a great Crusoe AI alternative for companies that might want a hybrid setup. Their cloud has a good range of NVIDIA GPUs and is used by some top AI research labs.

• Pros:

  • Gives you the flexibility of cloud and on-premise hardware.

  • Trusted by some heavy hitters in AI research.

  • The cloud platform is straightforward to use.

• Cons:

  • The most popular GPUs often have waitlists, so you might not get access right away.

  • Their main pricing page was down when we checked, which makes a direct comparison a little tricky.

• Pricing: According to their homepage, on-demand NVIDIA H100 instances start at $2.49/hour. They also list the new NVIDIA B200 GPUs starting at $2.99/hour per GPU. You'll have to chat with their sales team for larger private cloud setups.

5. RunPod

RunPod is a community-driven cloud platform that offers GPU power at some really low prices. How? It pulls together computing power from different places, including professional data centers (their "Secure Cloud") and peer-to-peer machines (their "Community Cloud"). It's a fantastic option for developers, researchers, and startups who need powerful GPUs but don't have an enterprise budget.

• Pros:

  • Super cost-effective, with some of the lowest hourly rates you'll find.

  • A wide variety of GPUs are available, even consumer cards like the RTX 4090.

  • Their serverless option is great if you just need to pay for processing time.

• Cons:

  • Not as focused on enterprise-level support and guarantees.

  • Performance on the "Community Cloud" can vary a bit.

• Pricing: RunPod bills by the second. In their Secure Cloud, an NVIDIA H100 GPU starts at $1.99/hour. Prices in the Community Cloud can be even cheaper, depending on what's available.

6. Google Cloud AI Infrastructure

If your company is already deep into the Google ecosystem, using Google Cloud Platform (GCP) as a Crusoe AI alternative just makes sense. GCP offers a dizzying array of services, from standard NVIDIA GPUs to their own custom-built Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), which are fine-tuned for machine learning. The big win here is how smoothly it all works with other Google services like BigQuery and Vertex AI.

• Pros:

  • It's Google, so scalability and reliability are top-notch.

  • You get access to both GPUs and their specialized TPUs.

  • Everything is deeply integrated into the wider Google Cloud ecosystem.

• Cons:

  • Pricing can get complicated and expensive if you don't commit to long-term use.

  • It can feel a bit much for teams that just want simple GPU access.

• Pricing: Google Cloud's pricing is complex. It's best to use their calculator to get a real estimate. For a ballpark figure, an instance with 8 NVIDIA A100 GPUs costs around $32.22/hour on-demand.

7. Vultr

Vultr is a popular independent cloud provider known for being simple, predictable, and having data centers all over the world. While they aren't an AI-only shop like Crusoe, they offer a solid lineup of NVIDIA and AMD GPU instances, including the H100. This makes them a strong choice for teams who want a developer-friendly platform that's easy to use and has a global reach.

• Pros:

  • The interface is clean and simple.

  • Pricing is transparent and predictable.

  • They have a huge global footprint with over 30 data center locations.

• Cons:

  • Less specialized for gigantic, multi-node AI training compared to the dedicated providers.

  • The top-tier GPUs might not always be in stock.

• Pricing: Vultr has straightforward hourly and monthly rates. A server with 8 NVIDIA HGX H100 GPUs costs $2.990/hour per GPU. They also offer fractional GPUs, so you can rent a small slice of an A100 for less than a dollar an hour to run smaller tests.

This video features Crusoe's co-founder explaining how they power data centers by capturing wasted natural gas.

How to choose the right Crusoe AI alternative

So, how do you pick? Your choice of a Crusoe AI alternative really boils down to what you're trying to do.

You should go with an IaaS platform (like Crusoe or CoreWeave) if:

• You have a team of ML engineers and data scientists in-house.

• Your mission is to build a unique, proprietary AI model from the ground up.

• You need total control over every piece of the hardware and software puzzle.

• Your work involves a lot of R&D that just needs raw computing horsepower.

A ready-made SaaS solution (like eesel AI) is the way to go if:

• You're trying to solve a specific business problem, like cutting down support ticket queues.

• You want to see a return on your investment in weeks, not years.

• You don't have a big AI engineering team or the budget to build one.

• You need AI that slides right into your existing tools without a painful migration project.

Build vs. buy with Crusoe AI alternatives: The smart choice for AI in customer support

Let's be real for a second. Building a genuinely helpful AI support agent on a platform like Crusoe is a massive project. You have to find and clean training data, pick and tune a model, build an engine to run it, create integrations with your help desk, and then hire a team to keep it all running. The cost can easily stretch into hundreds of thousands of dollars before it answers a single customer question.

This is where the "buy" approach with a tool like eesel AI starts to look like the smarter move for most companies. Instead of pouring months and a huge budget into building the plumbing, you can plug eesel AI into your Zendesk or Freshdesk account and have an AI agent handling tickets on day one. It automatically learns from your actual past customer conversations, so its answers are tailored to your business right away. You get all the perks of AI automation with a predictable monthly bill and none of the engineering headaches.

Choosing between Crusoe AI alternatives depends on your goal

Choosing the best Crusoe AI alternative isn't about finding the platform with the most GPUs or the rock-bottom lowest price. It’s about matching the tool to the job. If you're building the future of AI from scratch, infrastructure providers like CoreWeave and Voltage Park are fantastic choices.

But if your goal is to use powerful AI to solve business problems today, a ready-made solution is the faster and more efficient path. For customer support and internal knowledge, eesel AI offers the power of a custom-built solution with the simplicity of a tool you can set up in an afternoon.

Ready to see how an AI platform can change your support workflows? Try eesel AI for free or book a demo with our team.