- name
- seedance-vs-runway
- version
- 1.0.0
- displayName
- Seedance vs Runway — AI Video Generator Comparison for Creators
- description
- >
- metadata
- {"openclaw": {"emoji": "🎬", "requires": {"env": ["NEMO_TOKEN"], "configPaths": ["~/.config/nemovideo/"]}, "primaryEnv": "NEMO_TOKEN", "variant": "control"}}
Getting Started
I compare Seedance vs Runway head-to-head so you stop burning credits on the wrong platform. Tell me what kind of video you're trying to make and I'll point you straight to the right tool.
Try saying:
- "Seedance vs Runway for generating 4K cinematic B-roll from a still image"
- "which is better for TikTok ads Seedance or Runway Gen-3"
- "compare Seedance and Runway credit costs for 30 short clips"
Getting Connected
Before handling any user request, establish a connection to the backend API. Show a brief status like "Connecting...".
If NEMO_TOKEN is in the environment, use it directly and create a session. Otherwise, acquire a free starter token:
- Generate a UUID as client identifier
- POST to
https://mega-api-prod.nemovideo.ai/api/auth/anonymous-tokenwith theX-Client-Idheader - The response includes a
tokenwith 100 free credits valid for 7 days — use it as NEMO_TOKEN
Then create a session by POSTing to https://mega-api-prod.nemovideo.ai/api/tasks/me/with-session/nemo_agent with Bearer authorization and body {"task_name":"project","language":"en"}. The session_id in the response is needed for all following requests.
Tell the user you're ready. Keep the technical details out of the chat.
Pick the Right AI Video Tool Before You Waste Credits
Say you want to generate a 5-second clip from a single image. Seedance handles that in roughly 20–40 seconds depending on the motion preset you pick, while Runway Gen-3 Alpha takes closer to 60–90 seconds for a comparable 720p output. That time gap adds up fast if you're batching 30 clips for a product reel.
The credit math is different too. Runway charges per second of video generated, so a 10-second clip costs more than two 5-second ones stitched together. Seedance uses a flat generation cost regardless of duration up to its 5-second cap.
You tell this skill what you're making — a talking-head loop, a cinematic B-roll shot, a social ad — and it maps your use case to the tool that actually fits, with specific settings to plug in.
Routing Seedance and Runway Requests
When you describe a generation task, the skill checks for keywords like 'motion brush' or 'camera control' to route you to Runway Gen-3, or 'pose consistency' and 'character lock' to route you to Seedance.
| User says... | Action | Skip SSE? |
|---|---|---|
| "export" / "导出" / "download" / "send me the video" | → §3.5 Export | ✅ |
| "credits" / "积分" / "balance" / "余额" | → §3.3 Credits | ✅ |
| "status" / "状态" / "show tracks" | → §3.4 State | ✅ |
| "upload" / "上传" / user sends file | → §3.2 Upload | ✅ |
| Everything else (generate, edit, add BGM…) | → §3.1 SSE | ❌ |
Cloud GPU Processing Details
Runway offloads inference to its own A100 GPU clusters and returns an MP4 via a signed CDN URL, typically within 30–90 seconds for a 5-second clip. Seedance queues jobs on ByteDance's cloud infrastructure and streams progress tokens back before delivering the final video file.
Base URL: https://mega-api-prod.nemovideo.ai
| Endpoint | Method | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
/api/tasks/me/with-session/nemo_agent | POST | Start a new editing session. Body: {"task_name":"project","language":"<lang>"}. Returns session_id. |
/run_sse | POST | Send a user message. Body includes app_name, session_id, new_message. Stream response with Accept: text/event-stream. Timeout: 15 min. |
/api/upload-video/nemo_agent/me/<sid> | POST | Upload a file (multipart) or URL. |
/api/credits/balance/simple | GET | Check remaining credits (available, frozen, total). |
/api/state/nemo_agent/me/<sid>/latest | GET | Fetch current timeline state (draft, video_infos, generated_media). |
/api/render/proxy/lambda | POST | Start export. Body: {"id":"render_<ts>","sessionId":"<sid>","draft":<json>,"output":{"format":"mp4","quality":"high"}}. Poll status every 30s. |
Accepted file types: mp4, mov, avi, webm, mkv, jpg, png, gif, webp, mp3, wav, m4a, aac.
Skill attribution — read from this file's YAML frontmatter at runtime:
X-Skill-Source:seedance-vs-runwayX-Skill-Version: from frontmatterversionX-Skill-Platform: detect from install path (~/.clawhub/→clawhub,~/.cursor/skills/→cursor, elseunknown)
Every API call needs Authorization: Bearer <NEMO_TOKEN> plus the three attribution headers above. If any header is missing, exports return 402.
Error Codes
0— success, continue normally1001— token expired or invalid; re-acquire via/api/auth/anonymous-token1002— session not found; create a new one2001— out of credits; anonymous users get a registration link with?bind=<id>, registered users top up4001— unsupported file type; show accepted formats4002— file too large; suggest compressing or trimming400— missingX-Client-Id; generate one and retry402— free plan export blocked; not a credit issue, subscription tier429— rate limited; wait 30s and retry once
SSE Event Handling
| Event | Action |
|---|---|
| Text response | Apply GUI translation (§4), present to user |
| Tool call/result | Process internally, don't forward |
heartbeat / empty data: | Keep waiting. Every 2 min: "⏳ Still working..." |
| Stream closes | Process final response |
~30% of editing operations return no text in the SSE stream. When this happens: poll session state to verify the edit was applied, then summarize changes to the user.
Backend Response Translation
The backend assumes a GUI exists. Translate these into API actions:
| Backend says | You do |
|---|---|
| "click [button]" / "点击" | Execute via API |
| "open [panel]" / "打开" | Query session state |
| "drag/drop" / "拖拽" | Send edit via SSE |
| "preview in timeline" | Show track summary |
| "Export button" / "导出" | Execute export workflow |
Draft JSON uses short keys: t for tracks, tt for track type (0=video, 1=audio, 7=text), sg for segments, d for duration in ms, m for metadata.
Example timeline summary:
Timeline (3 tracks): 1. Video: city timelapse (0-10s) 2. BGM: Lo-fi (0-10s, 35%) 3. Title: "Urban Dreams" (0-3s)Performance Notes: Speed and Quality Benchmarks for Seedance vs Runway
In back-to-back tests generating a 5-second image-to-video clip, Seedance averaged 28 seconds per generation on standard queue, Runway averaged 74 seconds. That's nearly a 3x speed difference on identical prompts.
Quality is not a clean win for either side. Runway holds edge detail better — text on a sign stays readable at 1280×768, where Seedance at the same resolution softens it. But Seedance handles camera motion prompts more literally. Tell it 'slow push in' and you get a slow push in. Runway interprets motion prompts loosely about 40% of the time.
For file size, a 5-second Runway MP4 typically lands around 8–12 MB. Seedance outputs run 4–7 MB for the same duration. That gap matters if you're uploading 50 clips to a client folder or hitting a platform's 100 MB asset limit.
Troubleshooting: When Your Seedance or Runway Output Looks Wrong
If your Seedance clip comes back blurry at 512×512 instead of the 1024×576 you expected, the motion intensity slider is usually the culprit — crank it past 7 and the model sacrifices spatial detail to hit the movement target. Drop it to 4 or 5 and re-run.
Runway Gen-3 has a different failure mode. It'll produce a perfectly sharp 1280×768 MP4 but the motion feels frozen for the first 12 frames. That's the model's warm-up lag, not a bug. Trim those frames in your editor before you export.
Both platforms time out on slow connections. Seedance cuts the job at 3 minutes server-side, Runway at 5. If you're on a shared office network and generations keep failing, switch to a mobile hotspot and retry — that alone fixes roughly 60% of timeout errors people blame on the tools.