Serverless Inference Overview
What is serverless inference and how it differs from dedicated inference.
Use Serverless Inference
Validated on 28 Apr 2026 • Last edited on 14 May 2026
Inference provides a single control plane for managing inference workflows. It includes a Model Catalog where you can view available foundation models, including both DigitalOcean-hosted and third-party commercial models, compare model capabilities and pricing, use routing to match inference requests to the best-fit model, and run inference using serverless or dedicated deployments.
Get Started
Serverless Inference API Endpoints
Synchronous and asynchronous API endpoints for serverless inference.
How to Create and Manage Model Access Keys
Create, scope, and manage model access keys for foundation models, inference routers, and batch inference, with VPC restrictions and team-owner visibility.
How to Retrieve Available Models
How to retrieve models available for serverless inference.
Generate Chat Completions
How to Send Prompts to a Model Using the Chat Completions API
Send prompts and use reasoning with the Chat Completions API.
How to Send Prompts to a Model Using the Responses API
Send prompts with the Responses API.
How to Use Prompt Caching in Chat Completions and Responses API
Use prompt caching with the Chat Completions and Responses API.
How to Use Reasoning with the Chat Completions and Responses API
Use reasoning with the Chat Completions and Responses API.
Generate Images, Audio, Videos, and Text-to-Speech
How to Generate Images from Text Prompts
Generate or edit images from text prompts.
How to Use Multimodal Inference
Process and generate content across multiple data types, including images, audio, video, and text using multimodal models.
How to Use fal Models to Generate Image, Audio, or Text-to-Speech
Generate image, audio, or text-to-speech using fal models.