# Abelium R&D vs Alpdev

> Two top-rated AI Development agencies in Ljubljana. Side by side: published rates, team size, service and industry coverage, and the curator's assessment of both — pairings are never sold.

Canonical page: https://www.aiagencies.eu/compare/abelium-rd-vs-alpdev
Generated: 2026-09-17 · Curated by Gabor Kiss · No paid placements — inclusion, score, and rank are never sold.

## Facts
| | Abelium R&D | Alpdev |
|---|---|---|
| Editorial score | 51/100 | 51/100 |
| Hourly rate | €85-130/hr (directory-listed) | €45-85/hr (directory-listed) |
| Team size | 10-49 | 2-9 |
| Location | Ljubljana, Slovenia | Ljubljana, Slovenia |
| Founded | 2009 | 2025 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-07 |
| Services | AI Development, AI Consulting | AI Development, AI Automation, AI Agents |
| Industries | FinTech, SaaS & B2B, Manufacturing | SaaS & B2B, E-commerce, FinTech |

## Our take on Abelium R&D
Reviewed 2026-09-07 by Gabor Kiss against published evidence.

Abelium is a research house first: founded 2009 in mathematical optimization and operations research, with EU-funded projects—satellite-based photovoltaic forecasting for grid stability, digital tooling for cattle farming—sitting alongside the client work.

The AI-era evidence is its own product rather than a client deployment. so-yesterday.ai is live, and its architecture is described in detail: three information layers, on-premise open-weight models for chat and embeddings with frontier APIs only where they help, and a cryptographically verifiable audit trail on every synthesized claim, built explicitly as a proving ground for regulated environments.

The named client work is older and not AI—the GoOpti transport marketplace ran 2014 to 2018 on optimization algorithms, reporting more than 32,000 passengers a month and a 93% satisfaction rate.

Best for buyers with a genuine optimization or research problem—forecasting, scheduling, algorithmic matching—rather than a language-model deployment, and worth asking what that architecture would cost applied to your own documents.

### Key strengths
- Optimization and operations research as the core discipline, with published EU-funded research projects behind it rather than a services page
- The architecture of their own platform names the hard parts: on-premise models for confidential data, frontier APIs only where they earn their place, and an audit trail tying every claim to a source
- The GoOpti engagement ran four years and is backed by a client review on a third-party directory

### Good to know
- The AI-era system is their own product, not a client deployment—ask for an engagement where they built this architecture for someone else
- The named client work predates the language-model era—ask what has been delivered since 2023 and for whom
- At €85–130/h this is the highest published rate in Ljubljana—confirm what research-grade work costs against a scoped delivery

## Our take on Alpdev
Reviewed 2026-09-07 by Gabor Kiss against published evidence.

Nine client references, every one named and every one describing what was actually built: for Polfin, a three-score lead model whose intent score is language-model derived, with a separate cooling layer for churn risk, and a second engagement putting a real-time assistant with live transcription into the sales team's calls alongside CRM and telephony.

Bent's assistant is described as deterministic on purpose—it recommends cleaning products by linking to real catalog entries through the ERP rather than generating an answer—which is the right design decision stated out loud.

The firm was founded in 2025 with fewer than ten people, so the depth sits in the founder's published background, a Delft computer-science degree with a thesis on language-model performance, rather than in a delivery history—and no reference carries an outcome number.

The weaker fit is a buyer who needs proof a system held up over years; at €45–85/h with an OpenAI partnership and this much published detail, the trade is specificity now against track record later.

### Key strengths
- Nine named clients, with each reference stating the architecture rather than the benefit: scoring layers, telephony integration, ERP-linked retrieval
- Design decisions are defended, including a deterministic recommender chosen over a generative one
- The founder's technical background is published and checkable, and the firm is an OpenAI Select Partner

### Good to know
- No reference carries a measured outcome—ask each named client what changed after launch
- Founded in 2025 with fewer than ten people—ask what happens to support and maintenance as the client list grows
- Several references are recent builds—ask which systems have been running longest and what broke

## Which to choose
Choose Abelium R&D for:
- larger team capacity for multi-stream or enterprise-scale programs
- disclosed specialization in Manufacturing
- broader service offering — also covers AI Consulting

Choose Alpdev for:
- a more cost-effective engagement (~65% lower rate)
- closer collaboration at a smaller team scale
- disclosed specialization in E-commerce
- broader service offering — also covers AI Automation and AI Agents

## Questions buyers ask

### Which is cheaper, Abelium R&D or Alpdev?
Alpdev is cheaper by roughly 65% — €65/hr median vs €108/hr at Abelium R&D. Published rates cover different things at different agencies — seniority mix, discovery and included revisions are the usual variables — so treat the gap as a question to ask, not a verdict.

### Which has more FinTech experience, Abelium R&D or Alpdev?
Both agencies show documented FinTech work and have similar industry breadth. Compare directly on the agency profiles: Abelium R&D and Alpdev.

### Which scores higher overall, Abelium R&D or Alpdev?
Both score equally well overall (51/100). The deciding factor is specialization — see the editorial quotes and Strengths sections above. Full methodology.

### When should I consider both Abelium R&D and Alpdev?
Consider running parallel discovery briefs with Abelium R&D and Alpdev if your project spans multiple workstreams, you want competitive proposals to compare scope and approach, or you're undecided between the specialization angles each brings (see the Best for cards above). Most engagements ultimately go with one — but the parallel-brief phase is a low-cost way to validate fit.

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Source: AIAgencies.eu — the curated register of European AI agencies. Rate provenance: "agency-confirmed" = disclosed via submission or claimed profile; "directory-listed" = Clutch or two agreeing B2B directories (lone unverified sources are never written). Full method: https://www.aiagencies.eu/methodology · Rate index: https://www.aiagencies.eu/rates