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Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 1

your inference

workloads

Where to run

Choosing a hosting option for AI model inference

Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 2

From startups to enterprises, businesses of all sizes are quickly realizing that using custom, fine-

tuned, or open-source AI models has become essential for building competitive products.

At the same time, using these models in production presents challenges around reliability, security,

and performance. While AI providers like Anthropic and OpenAI can serve as a starting point, they

fall short for enterprise-grade solutions. Organizations need greater control over model behavior,

data privacy, and scalability—without sacrificing performance.

Choosing the right hosting solution is key to overcoming these challenges. Where you run your

inference workloads—on a cloud platform, your own virtual private cloud (VPC), or using a hybrid

approach—directly impacts the effectiveness of your AI systems. This choice is particularly

important when it comes to AI inference, the process of running models to generate responses or

predictions from new data.

Effective inference is vital for real-time services, seamless user experiences, and data-driven

decision-making. As businesses increasingly rely on AI to drive results, the need for efficient,

secure, and scalable hosting solutions has never been more urgent. Companies with superior

infrastructure will hold a competitive edge.

Baseten is laser-focused on providing the most performant and customizable deployment options

tailored to organizational needs. Unlike other infrastructure providers, with Baseten, you can run

your inference workloads in your cloud, our cloud, or both. As a result, our customers achieve lower

costs, industry-leading latencies, and 100% uptime—delivering powerful user experiences.

For CIOs, CTOs, VPs of AI, and IT leaders, understanding the benefits of different hosting solutions

is critical to ensuring performance, compliance, and cost-efficiency for AI-powered products. In

this guide, we’ll explore the differences between cloud, self-hosted, and hybrid hosting solutions,

and how they can play a key role in successful AI initiatives.

Introduction

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Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 3

AI Model Inference on Baseten

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Baseten is the leading machine learning inference platform for performant, reliable, and secure model

inference. Trusted by companies like Bland AI, Descript, and PicnicHealth, our mission is to empower

companies with the most customizable model deployment solution coupled with the lowest latency. With

blazing-fast cold starts, effortless autoscaling, and heightened observability, we provide our customers with

record-breaking latencies, throughput, and time to market.

Part of our mission involves offering customers the right solution for their needs, whether that’s the full control of

a Self-hosted setup, the convenience of Baseten Cloud, or a Hybrid approach that blends the best of both.

Understanding Baseten's hosting options: Self-hosted, Cloud, and Hybrid

Baseten Self-hosted offers enterprises complete control over their AI infrastructure and data, making it ideal for

organizations with stringent compliance requirements or those utilizing their existing resources.

Key advantages:

Data control and security:

rovides complete control over data residenc

, handling, and storage, ensuring

consistenc

with securit

and compliance policies like

GDPR

AA, and other industr

-speci

c standards

Customization and integration:

Allows tailored con

gurations and integrations with existing enterprise

stems, facilitating custom workflows

Credit utilization:

tilize

our existing

GPU

allocation, spend commit, and credits with cloud providers like

S and

GCP

Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 4

Baseten Cloud

Baseten Hybrid

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Baseten Cloud is designed for organizations that prioritize operational simplicity and rapid time to market. It

provides a managed, scalable environment for deploying AI models, ideal for enterprises looking to minimize

infrastructure costs and management while focusing on development.

Key advantages:

Scalability: Offers elastic scaling to accommodate varying workload demands, ensuring that resources are

available when needed

Cost Efficiency: Operates on a pay-as-you-go model, which helps manage costs effectively and particularly

benefits businesses with fluctuating AI workloads

Operational simplicity: Managed services reduce the burden of maintaining and upgrading infrastructure,

allowing internal teams to focus on innovation and development.

Baseten Hybrid combines Self-hosted and Cloud to provide ultimate flexibility. Utilize internal resources

whenever they’re available; seamlessly flex on Baseten Cloud whenever necessary. Spend down existing cloud

commitments and gain multi-cloud flexibility with full resource management.

Key advantages:

Cloud elasticity: Deploy workloads wherever there’s capacity with zero bandwidth needed to make them

compliant with AWS, GCP, or another cloud provider

Cost efficiency: Utilize internal resources whenever capacity permits and supplement them with Baseten’s

pay-as-you-go compute, eliminating the need for additional hardware purchases

Data control and security: Run sensitive workloads on your VPC with complete control over data handling

and storage.

Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 5

Selecting the right hosting solution

for your organization

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When deciding between the control of Baseten Self-hosted, convenience of Baseten Cloud, and flexibility of

Baseten Hybrid, consider the following factors:

Data sensitivity and compliance: 

For handling sensitive data and ensuring strict compliance, Baseten Self-hosted offers unparalleled control

and security, whereas Baseten Hybrid offers this option for whichever deployments you chooseb

Operational simplicity vs. control: 

Baseten Cloud is best for those prioritizing simplicity and reduced management overhead, while Self-hosted

and Hybrid offer deeper customization and controlb

Cost considerations: Evaluate the total cost of ownership, including infrastructure, maintenance, and

staffing. Baseten Cloud offers commit-based discounts, whereas Self-hosted and Hybrid may offer long-term

savings for those with significant infrastructureb

Unpredictable traffic: With fluid flex compute, Baseten Hybrid helps you ensure you maintain SLAs during

traffic spikes. In addition to elastic compute, Baseten Cloud offers solutions like asynchronous inference for

increased robustness in the face of unpredictable trafficb

Performance requirements: All three deployment options are ideal for applications demanding low latency

and high throughput.

Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 6

Cost

Data control

Maintenance

Performance optimization

Scalability

Security and compliance

Utilization of existing cloud

commits

Potentially higher up front, and

lower long-term costs

Full control, with region-locked

data and deployments

Minimal, handled by Baseten

Optimized for low-latency, high-

throughput inference

High, tailored scalability

High, with enterprise-level custom

security protocols

Use credits or commits

Pay-as-you-go for on-demand

compute

Partial control, with managed data

security and multi-region support

Minimal, handled by Baseten

Optimized for low-latency, high-

throughput inference

Highly scalable, elastic compute

High, with

ype

certi

cation and H

compliance

pend down e

isting cloud

commits

Pay-as-you-go for ove

low, reducing

up front capital e

penditure on

tra compute

Full control for self-hosted

workloads, partial for spillover

Minimal, handled by Baseten

Optimized for low-latency, high-

throughput inference

High, tailored scalability with

capacity on Baseten cloud

High, with the

ibility to adhere

to custom policies or lean on our

secure infrastructure

Use credits or commits

features

aseten

ybrid

aseten Cloud

aseten Self

-h

osted

Baseten Self-hosted, Cloud, and

Hybrid: a side-by-side comparison

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The table below compares Baseten's hosting options, highlighting key factors such as cost, customization, data

control, performance, scalability, and security.

Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 7

Baseten’s architecture: a detailed

overview

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Baseten's architecture is designed to deliver robust performance, scalability, and security for AI applications.

The platform comprises three key components: the management layer, control plane, and workload plane.

For Self-hosted solutions (and Hybrid solutions where certain workloads are run in a self-hosted manner), the

workload plane is configured in your virtual private cloud (VPC).

²§

Management layer 

The management layer is the interface that allows users to interact with the Baseten platform. It provides

tools for managing teams, setting access privileges, and overseeing metrics and reporting. This layer also

includes a comprehensive model library, enabling easy access to various open-source AI models. 

Key Features: 

- Role-based access control (RBAC) and single sign-on (SSO) for secure user management. 

- Real-time analytics and custom reporting capabilities. 

- Integration with external tools and services for extended functionality.

lan

The control plane acts as Baseten

s operational hub, orchestrating the policies and con

gurations that

govern the AI environment, as well as pac

aging models and engines. It manages autoscaling policies,

monitors performance metrics, and provides middleware services to ensure consistent and e

ffi

cient

operation across di

erent environments. 

Key Features: 

- Autoscaling to dynamically ad

ust resources based on demand. 

erformance monitoring and logging tools integrated with popular platforms li

rometheus and

rafana. 

- Con

guration management to maintain consistency across production and development environments.

Work

lan

The models and engines pac

aged by the Baseten control plane are deployed to the wor

load plane, which

can be set up in your cloud environment and regions as long as they have

GPU

availability. All model

inference inputs and outputs are processed by the wor

load plane without entering the control plane,

providing a level of separation for self-hosted solutions

;

inference calls will never hit Baseten

’

VPC

Key Features: 

- Support for containeri

ed deployments using

er and orchestration via

ubernetes. 

- Available fractional

H100

GPU

s for more e

ffi

cient compute resource usage. 

- Compatibility with various AI framewor

s and libraries

facilitating diverse model deployment.

Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 8

Baseten’s Architecture Visualized

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The Baseten architecture can be visualized as a layered stack, where each layer builds upon the capabilities of

the previous one.

Each layer is designed to interact seamlessly, providing a cohesive and integrated platform that supports the

end-to-end lifecycle of AI applications. This modular structure allows enterprises to scale their AI operations

efficiently while maintaining control over critical aspects such as data security, compliance, and performance.

On-chip performance is optimized with the best inference optimization options (TensorRT/TensorRT-LLM,

vLLM, TEI, TGI, etc.) and model serving tooling (including a custom implementation of NVIDIA Triton), as well as

instance and network-level improvements to cold starts and end-to-end latency. This ensures AI workloads are

low-latency, high-throughput, and cost-effective.

management layer

control plane

workload plane

Management layer:

The top layer, providing user interface and

management tools.

Control plane:

The middle layer, ensuring load balancing and

orchestrating policies and configurations.

Workload plane:

The bottom layer, managing compute

resources and executing model inference.

Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 9

Key use cases for Baseten

Audio transcription

Baseten optimizes transcription models for low latency and high

throughput, which is essential for real-time audio processing. Self-hosted

deployment ensures data privacy and compliance, which is crucial for

handling sensitive audio data. Go beyond basic Whisper transcription

with support for advanced features and fine-tuned variants at a fraction

of the unit price OpenAI charges.

Text-to-speech

Generate speech in record time, and gain flawless reliability–even during

peak demand. Baseten works with companies generating speech from

text to ensure real-time conversations and human-level experiences. And

with our HIPAA-compliant platform, you get the data privacy and

compliance guarantees that you need to handle sensitive audio data in

medical domains.

Compound AI

Complex AI applications like real-time phone calling and automated

agents rely on multiple AI models and business logic. Baseten Chains

simplifies building compound AI systems by removing boilerplate code,

ensuring type-safe interfaces, and optimizing GPU usage to reduce

latency. Self-hosting ensures that every step of your complex pipelines

has the same security protocols in place and is fully integrated with your

existing systems.

baseten.com | hi@baseten.com

continued

Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 10

Key use cases for Baseten

Image generation

Baseten provides high-performance, cost-efficient infrastructure for

image generation, delivering low latency and high throughput. Self-

hosting ensures the secure handling of proprietary image data, which is

crucial for enterprises with strict compliance requirements.

AI development platform

Baseten offers a cohesive platform for deploying proprietary, fine-tuned,

and third-party models. It simplifies infrastructure management,

enhances developer productivity, and ensures secure, compliant AI

deployments within existing tech stacks.

Proprietary models

Baseten supports secure deployments of proprietary models that

achieve similar performance to leading public model endpoints. Data

governance, compliance, reliability, and control don’t have to come at the

expense of industry-leading performance.

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Baseten AI Agent for Deployment Software — page 11

Conclusion

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Choosing the right hosting option is crucial for the success of your AI initiatives. Baseten's flexible solutions—

whether Self-hosted for control and customization, Cloud for simplicity and scalability, or Hybrid for ultimate

flexibility—cater to diverse enterprise needs. By carefully evaluating your specific requirements against the

features and benefits of these hosting options, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your

organizational goals.

For personalized guidance or more information, please contact Baseten’s team of experts.

Explore Baseten today

We’d love to hear how you’re handling inference in production and discuss how

Baseten can help your company excel. Reach out to us at

sales@baseten.co

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