Which Chinese LLM Provider Has the Most Stable Cache for Running Agents?

Why cache matters

Agent applications execute a chain of tasks that repeatedly include long system prompts, many tool definitions, repeated context, and multi‑turn reasoning. In such scenarios the cache hit rate determines whether repeated input tokens can be processed at lower cost, keeping first‑token latency and overall response feel stable. A sudden cache miss makes the same task slower, more expensive, or even cause a price spike.

Test data and analysis

Aggregators that merely forward requests to official model endpoints were excluded to avoid mixing additional variables into the core cache‑and‑availability comparison.

Official model vendors

DeepSeek official, Xiaomi MiMo, and Zhipu achieve cache hit rates above 90 % and sometimes approach 97 %. High hit rates keep costs low and responses stable, preventing sudden price spikes for identical tasks.

Cloud MaaS providers – Alibaba Cloud Bailei vs Volcano Ark

Alibaba Cloud Bailei and Volcano Ark host their own models and also support self‑deployed open‑source models, unlike other aggregators that only forward traffic.

Bailei’s cache hit rate is lower than the official vendors but still higher than Volcano Ark, and its overall availability is more reliable.

Volcano Ark pitfalls

Volcano Ark’s cache hit rate ranges from 65 % to 73 %, which explains reports of fast token consumption on its plans. Its API frequently returns 429 errors or suffers from insufficient concurrent resources, especially in continuous chat scenarios. Without client‑side queuing, retry, rate‑limiting, and fallback, high‑frequency Agent calls can be abruptly interrupted.

Technical mitigations

Implement client‑side queuing to avoid sudden spikes that saturate the provider.

Retry with exponential back‑off on 429 and 5xx responses.

Configure fallback providers for critical tasks.

Split long tasks into smaller steps to reduce the impact of a single failure.

Record cache hit rate, first‑token latency, error rate, and retry count for monitoring.

Conclusion for Agent workloads

For pure Agent use, prioritize official model vendors such as DeepSeek, Xiaomi MiMo, and Zhipu for their high cache hit rates, controllable costs, and stable user experience.

If platform‑level capabilities (multi‑model unification, enterprise management, billing, service governance) are required, Alibaba Cloud Bailei is a solid alternative despite a slightly lower cache hit rate.

Volcano Ark should be approached with caution; if used, ensure robust client‑side queuing, rate‑limiting, retries, and fallback mechanisms.

References

https://github.com/OctaFuse/octafuse-gateway