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Introducing Respan Router

Plano vs SambaNova (2026)

Updated March 10, 2026

vs

Overview

Rating
10.0 / 10
Rating
10.0 / 10
Product Summary

AI-native proxy and data plane for agentic applications

Product Summary

SambaNova builds custom AI chips (RDU - Reconfigurable Dataflow Units) and provides a cloud platform for running LLMs with extremely fast inference speeds. Their SambaNova Cloud offers free-tier access to popular models like Llama and DeepSeek with industry-leading throughput.

Starting Price
$0Per free
Starting Price
$0Per month
Free Trial
Yes
Free Trial
Yes
Free Version
No
Free Version
Yes
Website

Strengths and tradeoffs

What each tool does well, and the limitations to keep in mind.

PlanoPlano

Pros

  • Fills critical infrastructure gap between frameworks and production
  • Built on battle-tested Envoy proxy
  • Language and framework agnostic
  • Strong open-source community (5,800+ GitHub stars)
  • Modular design - use only what you need

Cons

  • Relatively new project (2024)
  • Production pricing not transparent
  • Requires infrastructure expertise for self-hosting
SambaNovaSambaNova

Pros

  • Production-ready
  • Good performance
  • Active development

Cons

  • Pricing varies
  • Setup required

Compare Plano and SambaNova on your own traffic

10KFree traces/mo
1,000+Models
5 minSetup

Respan lets you trace LLM and agent calls across any model or framework, A/B test prompts on production traffic, and route requests across 1,000+ models through one gateway.

Try Respan free

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