RunPod Alternative
The RunPod alternative
built for India.
INR billing. Zero egress. ISO 27001 certified. DPDP-compliant. NVIDIA A100, H100, and L40S GPUs available now — when RunPod's queue starts at 30 minutes, our Pods start in seconds.
Why ML teams are leaving RunPod
H100/A100 frequently unavailable on Community tier. Surge pricing on Secure Cloud.
USD billing means Indian teams pay 8–12% more after FX + GST on card spend.
Charges to pull model weights, datasets, and inference results back out.
Workloads run in US/EU regions. No DPDP compliance path. No government empanelment.
PodStack vs RunPod — feature by feature
| Feature | PodStack | RunPod |
|---|---|---|
| Billing currency | INR — no forex surprises | USD only |
| Egress fees | Zero | Charged per GB |
| Fractional GPU | 12.5% – 100% via PodVirt | Full GPU only |
| Data residency | India (Bengaluru DCs) | US / EU |
| Compliance | ISO 27001, DPDP-ready | SOC 2 (US) |
| SLA | Enterprise SLA available | Best-effort on Community tier |
| Cold start | Seconds (Pods + VMs) | Varies by region/availability |
Pricing side-by-side
RunPod prices converted at ₹83.5/USD. RunPod rates vary by region and availability.
| GPU | PodStack | RunPod |
|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA L40S 48GB | ₹100/hr (incl. taxes) | ~$1.20/hr (~₹100/hr) when available |
| NVIDIA A100 40GB | ₹208/hr | ~$1.64/hr (~₹137/hr) when available |
| NVIDIA A100 80GB | ₹292/hr | ~$1.89/hr (~₹158/hr) when available |
| NVIDIA H100 80GB | ₹333/hr | ~$2.99/hr (~₹250/hr) when available |
Migrating from RunPod in under an hour
- Step 1Push your Docker image
docker tag my-llm:latest registry.podstack.ai/<org>/my-llm:latest docker push registry.podstack.ai/<org>/my-llm:latest - Step 2Sync model weights and datasets
aws s3 sync ./weights/ s3://my-bucket/weights/ \ --endpoint-url https://s3.podstack.ai - Step 3Launch a Pod
# podstack.yaml gpu: a100-80gb gpuFraction: 1.0 image: registry.podstack.ai/<org>/my-llm:latest volume: bucket: my-bucket mountPath: /workspacepodstack pod create -f podstack.yaml
Frequently asked questions
Why are people looking for a RunPod alternative?+
RunPod has been capacity-constrained on popular GPUs like H100 and A100, forcing teams to queue for availability or pay surge prices. Indian teams also face forex exposure (USD billing), egress charges, and US data residency that conflicts with DPDP and India-government workloads.
Is PodStack cheaper than RunPod?+
PodStack starts at ₹92/hr for A10G and ₹100/hr for L40S (inclusive of taxes). Combined with zero egress fees, per-minute billing, and fractional GPU (pay for 12.5% of a GPU if that's all you need), the all-in total cost is typically lower for Indian teams once forex, egress, and rounding are accounted for.
Can I run vLLM, Unsloth, and ComfyUI on PodStack like I do on RunPod?+
Yes. PodStack ships one-click templates for vLLM, Unsloth fine-tuning, ComfyUI, PyTorch, and TensorFlow. Bring your own Docker image or use the templates — the workflow is the same as RunPod.
How do I migrate from RunPod to PodStack?+
Three steps: (1) push your Docker image to a registry PodStack can pull from, (2) sync model weights and datasets to a PodStack S3-compatible bucket, (3) launch a Pod with podstack.yaml or the portal. Most teams are migrated in under an hour.
Does PodStack have an SLA like RunPod's Secure Cloud tier?+
Yes. PodStack offers enterprise SLAs on Pods, VMs, and Baremetal GPU. Unlike RunPod Community, every PodStack tier runs on operator-owned data centres inside India — no marketplace hosts.
Is my data safe with PodStack? RunPod is US-based — I have DPDP / India compliance requirements.+
PodStack is ISO 27001 certified and DPDP-compliant. All compute and storage stay inside Indian data centres. Your data never crosses borders. PodStack is government-empanelment ready for defence and regulated workloads.
Can I get H100s on PodStack right now if RunPod is out?+
PodStack maintains H100 capacity in Indian data centres with priority allocation for enterprise customers. If you need urgent H100 availability, contact sales@podstack.ai and we can usually provision within hours.
Stop queueing. Start training.
Launch your first Pod in under 60 seconds.
Open Portal →