Is Vellum or Poolside better?

Neither clearly leads. Vellum starts at Free and Poolside at $0.06/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Vellum or Poolside?

Vellum has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Vellum and $0.06/month for Poolside.

Does Vellum or Poolside run on more platforms?

Vellum runs on Web, macOS, iOS, Slack, Telegram, Terminal. Poolside runs on web, api, mac, windows, linux.

Can I use Vellum for free?

Yes. Vellum has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Poolside starts at $0.06/month.

What is Vellum best used for?

Vellum is most often used for personal productivity automation across email and calendar, crm updates and pipeline management, expense report generation and management, document drafting and content creation. Of those, personal productivity automation across email and calendar and crm updates and pipeline management are not what Poolside is typically brought in for.

What can Vellum do that Poolside cannot?

Vellum covers Persistent AI identity, Long-term memory, Email automation, Calendar management. Poolside covers Laguna S 2.1, Laguna XS 2.1, Desktop and CLI tools, Open-weight models.

AI · head to head

Vellum vs Poolside

Vellum

Personalized AI assistant with persistent memory and autonomous action-taking

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Poolside

Open-weight foundation models built for agentic software engineering

From: $0.06/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only Vellum has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: Vellum pricing varies significantly by computational tier, making budget planning difficult; Poolside no self-serve public application; access is largely through enterprise sales or third-party model gateways
They diverge on capability: Vellum covers Persistent AI identity, Poolside covers Laguna S 2.1.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Vellum and Poolside actually diverge.

Attributes where Vellum and Poolside differ
Attribute	Vellum	Poolside
Starting price	Free	$0.06/month
Pricing model	Freemium with paid plans and pay-as-you-go credits	usage-based
Free tier	Yes	No
Platforms	Web, macOS, iOS, Slack, Telegram, Terminal	web, api, mac, windows, linux
Founded	Unknown	2023

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (AI).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Vellum

Persistent AI identity
Long-term memory
Email automation
Calendar management
Autonomous task execution
Multi-device synchronization
Custom plugins
Open-source deployment

Only in Poolside

Laguna S 2.1
Laguna XS 2.1
Desktop and CLI tools
Open-weight models
Third-party gateway access

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Vellum

Personal productivity automation across email and calendarnot Poolside
CRM updates and pipeline managementnot Poolside
Expense report generation and managementnot Poolside
Document drafting and content creationnot Poolside
Meeting scheduling and calendar coordinationnot Poolside

Poolside

Enterprises deploying AI coding assistance across large developer organizationsnot Vellum
Government and defense agencies needing on-premise or sovereign coding modelsnot Vellum
Teams building custom coding agents on open-weight foundation modelsnot Vellum
Organizations wanting on-device lightweight coding modelsnot Vellum

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Vellum

Pricing varies significantly by computational tier, making budget planning difficult
Requires explicit permission for sensitive actions, limiting autonomy
Self-hosting option may intimidate non-technical users
Learning curve to develop customizations with plugins

Poolside

No self-serve public application; access is largely through enterprise sales or third-party model gateways
Pricing for the flagship enterprise and government offering is not public and requires a sales conversation
Targets organizations with large (5,000+) developer headcounts, making it a poor fit for individuals or small teams
Documentation and product surface area are thin compared to consumer-facing coding assistants

Pricing, plan by plan

Vellum

Free

FreeFree
- Starter credits included
- Basic features
Mighty$30/month
- 1 vCPU, 2 GiB RAM
- 10 GB storage
- Included usage allowance
Super$100/month
- 2.5 vCPU, 5 GiB RAM
- 30 GB storage
- Assistant email and subdomain
Ultra$200/month
- 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM
- 60 GB storage
- Assistant email and subdomain

Poolside

$0.06/month

Laguna XS 2.1$undefined/month
- $0.06 per 1M input tokens
- $0.12 per 1M output tokens
- Available via OpenRouter and Vercel AI Gateway
Laguna S 2.1$undefined/month
- $0.10 per 1M input tokens
- $0.20 per 1M output tokens
- 1M token context window
Enterprise / Government$undefined/month
- Custom contracts for large engineering organizations
- Sales-quoted pricing
- On-premise or dedicated deployment options

Which should you pick?

Choose Vellum if

You need persistent ai identity.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, macOS, iOS, Slack, Telegram, Terminal.
You also want long-term memory.

Vellum review

Choose Poolside if

You need laguna s 2.1.
You work on web, api, mac, windows, linux.
You also want laguna xs 2.1.

Poolside review

Questions people ask

Is Vellum or Poolside better?: Neither clearly leads. Vellum starts at Free and Poolside at $0.06/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Vellum or Poolside?: Vellum has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Vellum and $0.06/month for Poolside.
Does Vellum or Poolside run on more platforms?: Vellum runs on Web, macOS, iOS, Slack, Telegram, Terminal. Poolside runs on web, api, mac, windows, linux.
Can I use Vellum for free?: Yes. Vellum has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Poolside starts at $0.06/month.
What is Vellum best used for?: Vellum is most often used for personal productivity automation across email and calendar, crm updates and pipeline management, expense report generation and management, document drafting and content creation. Of those, personal productivity automation across email and calendar and crm updates and pipeline management are not what Poolside is typically brought in for.
What can Vellum do that Poolside cannot?: Vellum covers Persistent AI identity, Long-term memory, Email automation, Calendar management. Poolside covers Laguna S 2.1, Laguna XS 2.1, Desktop and CLI tools, Open-weight models.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Vellum: How does Vellum protect my data privacy?

Vellum uses permission-based controls requiring explicit approval for sensitive actions. Data is encrypted and the option for self-hosting provides complete data control. Open-source deployment option allows hosting on your own infrastructure.

Source

Poolside: How is Poolside's Laguna model usage priced?

Laguna XS 2.1 is priced at $0.06 per 1M input tokens and $0.12 per 1M output tokens; Laguna S 2.1 is $0.10 per 1M input tokens and $0.20 per 1M output tokens.

Source

Vellum: Can I use Vellum for business team collaboration?

Vellum is primarily designed as a personal assistant with persistent identity. For team collaboration, platforms like Lindy offer better multi-user features with shared credit pools and Slack workspace integration.

Source

Poolside: Where can I access Poolside's models?

Laguna models are available through third-party gateways OpenRouter and Vercel AI Gateway, as well as via Poolside's own desktop and CLI tools.

Source

Vellum: What does the free tier include?

Vellum offers free starter credits to begin using the platform. Beyond that, it operates on a pay-as-you-go credit model with paid tiers starting at $30/month for increased computational resources and bundled credits.

Source

Poolside: Does Poolside offer enterprise or government pricing?

Yes, Poolside offers custom, sales-quoted contracts for large enterprises and government/defense customers, including on-premise or dedicated deployment options.

Source

Poolside: How do I get started building with Poolside's models?

Poolside's documentation provides a quickstart guide for installing the `pool` CLI and running an agent task, alongside API documentation for custom integrations.

Source

Vellum vs Poolside

Vellum

Poolside

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Vellum

Only in Poolside

What people use each for

Vellum

Poolside

Where each one falls short

Vellum

Poolside

Pricing, plan by plan

Vellum

Poolside

Which should you pick?

Choose Vellum if

Choose Poolside if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Vellum

More on Poolside

Keep looking

Other head to heads