Recursive vs Thedrummer

Recursive lists 1 models and Thedrummer 4. Below: line-up, price tiers, the cheapest model for each capability, and what each costs for five real workloads.

At a glance

RecursiveThedrummer
Models listed14
Models with published pricing14
Typical price (median, 3:1 blend per 1M)n/a$0.38
Cheapest paid modeln/aTheDrummer: Rocinante 12B ($0.31)
Longest contextRecursive: Flint (free) (262K)TheDrummer: UnslopNemo 12B (1.0M)
Free models10
Newest modelRecursive: Flint (free) (2026-10-21)TheDrummer: Cydonia 24B V4.1 (2025-09-27)
Price changes in the last 90 days01
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What each costs for real workloads

For each workload: the cheapest model from each provider that can actually do it (fits the context window; tool calling required for the agent), and its monthly cost at list price.

Workload (per month)RecursiveThedrummer
Customer-support chatbot
50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation
no suitable model$28.75 with TheDrummer: Rocinante 12B
RAG search over documents
20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages
no suitable model$35.00 with TheDrummer: Rocinante 12B
Coding / tool-using agent
2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context
no suitable modelno suitable model
Batch summarisation
10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page
no suitable model$23.00 with TheDrummer: Rocinante 12B
Long-document analysis
500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass
no suitable model$15.50 with TheDrummer: Cydonia 24B V4.1

Cheapest model for each capability

You needRecursiveThedrummer
Any modelnone listedTheDrummer: Rocinante 12B ($0.31)
With tool callingnone listednone listed
With image inputnone listednone listed
With reasoning modenone listednone listed
128K+ contextnone listedTheDrummer: Cydonia 24B V4.1 ($0.35)
1M+ contextnone listedTheDrummer: UnslopNemo 12B ($0.40)

Line-up by type and price tier

Model typeRecursiveThedrummer
text->text14
Price per 1M (3:1 blend)RecursiveThedrummer
Free10
Under $0.5003
$0.50 – $301
$3 – $1000
$10 and up00

Frequently asked questions

Is Recursive better than Thedrummer?

It depends on the job: Thedrummer offers the broader line-up (1 models vs 4), Thedrummer the longest context (1.0M tokens). The workload table above shows which wins for chat, RAG, agents, batch jobs and long documents.

Which has more models, Recursive or Thedrummer?

Thedrummer: Recursive lists 1 models and Thedrummer lists 4.

Which provider has the longest context window?

Thedrummer: Recursive's longest is Recursive: Flint (free) at 262K tokens; Thedrummer's is TheDrummer: UnslopNemo 12B at 1.0M.

Do Recursive or Thedrummer offer free models?

Recursive: 1 free model (e.g. Recursive: Flint (free)). Thedrummer: none.

Which provider has models that can read images?

Recursive: 0 of 1 models accept images. Thedrummer: 0 of 4.

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