Hinode: a RunPod alternative that keeps your setup
RunPod rents the card for less. Hinode puts a computer around it: a desktop, your apps and files on a disk that is still there after a pause, and a machine that pauses itself when you stop working.
48 GB L40S: from $3.30/hr here, $1.09/hr on RunPod ·
Checked 2026-10-05
Hinode vs RunPod
The same cards, with a computer around them
Line by line, with the rows where RunPod wins left in. RunPod figures are its Secure Cloud list prices on 2026-10-05.
| Hinode | RunPod | |
| 24 GB, per hour | L4 · from $1.75 | L4 · $0.49 |
| 48 GB, per hour | L40S · from $3.30 | L40S · $1.09 |
| 96 GB, per hour | RTX PRO 6000 · from $8.05 | RTX PRO 6000 · $2.09 |
| Billed | By the minute | By the second |
| Disk, running | $0.15 per GB-month, for what is written | $0.10 per GB-month |
| Disk, stopped | $0.15 per GB-month, same | $0.20 per GB-month |
| Shared storage | $0.10 per GB-month, on every machine | $0.07 per GB-month network volume |
| Traffic out | $0.10 per GB | No fee |
| Ways in | Desktop, SSH, VS Code, AI assistants | Web terminal, SSH, JupyterLab, VS Code |
| When you stop | Paused: disk, apps and files kept | Volume kept, container disk cleared |
| Getting the GPU back | Any free card of that size | Not held: a restart can get zero GPUs |
| When you forget it | Pauses itself after 15 idle minutes | Runs until you stop it |
| Where | US East, Frankfurt | 31 regions |
RunPod, read 2026-10-05: runpod.io/pricing · docs.runpod.io/pods/storage/types · docs.runpod.io/pods/manage-pods · docs.runpod.io/pods/connect-to-a-pod · runpod.io/product/cloud-gpus. Community Cloud is cheaper still: an L40S is $0.79 and an RTX PRO 6000 $1.69. Hinode figures are the live price list. All providers, side by side: /compare
Which one
Which one should you use?
Both rent you an NVIDIA card by the hour. They differ in what is around it.
Use RunPod when
- The hourly rate decides: the same card is about a third of the price.
- You want serverless endpoints, or a region Hinode is not in.
- You work in a container over SSH or Jupyter and stop the Pod yourself.
Use Hinode when
- You come back to the same setup every day and do not want to rebuild it.
- You want a desktop, or ComfyUI in a tab on your own computer, without opening a port.
- You forget machines: an idle one pauses itself after 15 minutes.
- Several machines should read one folder of models.
Pricing
Cloud GPU pricing, by the minute
No plan and nothing up front. One bill at the end of the month, itemised by what ran.
WORKSPACE
$0.297/hr
A desktop on 1/8 of an NVIDIA L4, your files and your apps. Pauses itself when you leave.
- Disk
- $0.15 / GB-month written
- Shared folder
- $0.10 / GB-month
- Traffic out
- $0.10 / GB
MACHINE · 24 GB
from$1.75/hr
NVIDIA L4
Image generation, light fine-tuning, most ComfyUI work
MACHINE · 48 GB
Popularfrom$3.30/hr
NVIDIA L40S
Video models, bigger LoRAs, 30B-class inference
MACHINE · 96 GB
from$8.05/hr
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell
70B-class models, long video, what fits nowhere else
What a month costs
≈ $112/month
87 h of workspace $25.84 + 26 h on 48x32 $85.80. Disks and the shared folder are extra.
These are the rates your invoice uses. The US and Europe cost the same.
FAQ
Hinode and RunPod: questions
No. On 2026-10-05 an L40S with 48 GB was $1.09 an hour on RunPod's Secure Cloud and from $3.30 on Hinode. Hinode is for people who lose more to rebuilding a setup and to forgotten machines than to the hourly rate.
A computer instead of a container: a desktop on your screen, apps that install in one click, and a disk that keeps them through a pause. A machine pauses itself after 15 idle minutes, and every machine in a workspace reads one shared folder.
Only for its disk: $0.15 per GB-month for what is written on it, the same rate as while it runs. The hourly charge stops.
Yes. Every Hinode machine answers over SSH, so rsync or scp copies a Pod's volume straight to it. Put models in the shared folder and every machine you start reads them.
No. Hinode rents whole machines by the minute. For a batch over a dataset, hinode run starts a machine, runs your command and pauses the machine when it is done.
Set it up once. Find it there tomorrow.
Create a workspace, install your apps, and start a GPU when you need one.
