{ "title": "OpenRouter Alternatives 2027: 11 Paid, Free & Open-Source", "url": "https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/openrouter/", "summary": "The best OpenRouter alternatives in 2027 are Vercel AI Gateway (best overall, 0%), Portkey (best free plan) and LiteLLM (best open source, MIT (some parts under a separate licence)). OpenRouter itself starts at 5.5%. Zekai checked these prices on vendor pages on 13 Nov 2026; 8 more are compared below, including 2 with a free plan and 4 open source.", "tool": { "name": "OpenRouter", "starting_price": "5.5% platform fee", "free_plan": "25+ free models, 50 requests a day", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://openrouter.ai/pricing" }, "task": "LLM API gateway", "prices_checked": "2026-11-13", "date_modified": "2026-11-13", "alternatives": [ { "name": "Vercel AI Gateway", "type": "Free", "starting_price": "0% markup, pay as you go", "free_plan_limit": "Monthly free credit, subset of models, lower rate limits", "best_for": "Teams already deploying on Vercel", "difference": "Vercel states it charges no markup and no platform fee on tokens, including with your own key, where OpenRouter applies a 5.5% platform fee on Standard.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/pricing", "website": "https://vercel.com/ai-gateway" }, { "name": "Cloudflare AI Gateway", "type": "Free", "starting_price": "Provider cost; 5% on Unified Billing credits", "free_plan_limit": "100,000 logs total across all gateways (Legacy Logs, Workers Free)", "best_for": "Caching and logging in front of any provider", "difference": "Cloudflare passes provider inference through with no markup and adds a 5% fee only on credits bought via Unified Billing; gateways add caching, rate limiting and logs.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-gateway/reference/pricing/", "website": "https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-gateway/", "zekai_score": 9.3, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/cloudflare-ai-gateway/" }, { "name": "Portkey", "type": "Free plan + paid", "starting_price": "$49/mo", "free_plan_limit": "10k recorded logs per month, 3-day log retention", "best_for": "Gateway with guardrails and observability", "difference": "Portkey sells a flat $49 Production plan with guardrails, fallbacks and load balancing, plus a self-hosted open-source gateway with no request limit; OpenRouter charges a percentage fee instead.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://portkey.ai/pricing", "website": "https://portkey.ai", "zekai_score": 7.3, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/portkey/" }, { "name": "Together AI", "type": "Paid", "starting_price": "Pay per token", "free_plan_limit": "No free plan", "best_for": "Hosting open models with dedicated GPUs", "difference": "Together runs open-weight models on its own GPUs, with serverless, dedicated endpoints, provisioned throughput and fine-tuning, while OpenRouter forwards requests to other providers' endpoints.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://www.together.ai/pricing", "website": "https://www.together.ai", "zekai_score": 9.1, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/together-ai/" }, { "name": "Hugging Face Inference Providers", "type": "Free plan + paid", "starting_price": "$9/mo", "free_plan_limit": "Free account; inference credits not listed on pricing page", "best_for": "Open models from the Hub via many providers", "difference": "Inference Providers sits inside a Hugging Face account; PRO costs $9/mo with $2 of monthly inference credits, versus OpenRouter's pay-as-you-go credits with a platform fee.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://huggingface.co/pricing", "website": "https://huggingface.co/docs/inference-providers", "zekai_score": 9.3, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/hugging-face/" }, { "name": "Amazon Bedrock", "type": "Paid", "starting_price": "Pay per token", "free_plan_limit": "No free plan", "best_for": "Models inside an AWS account", "difference": "Bedrock bills on-demand per token or hourly provisioned model units inside your AWS account, which brings regional deployment and AWS billing that OpenRouter's separate credit balance does not.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://aws.amazon.com/bedrock/pricing/", "website": "https://aws.amazon.com/bedrock/", "zekai_score": 7.1, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/amazon-bedrock/" }, { "name": "LiteLLM", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "$0 self-hosted (hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "MIT (some parts under a separate licence)", "best_for": "Self-hosted OpenAI-compatible proxy for 100+ providers", "difference": "LiteLLM runs on your own infrastructure with virtual keys, budgets and spend tracking across 100+ providers, so you hold the provider keys; OpenRouter is a hosted service.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://www.litellm.ai/pricing", "website": "https://www.litellm.ai", "repository": "https://github.com/BerriAI/litellm", "commercial_use": "Yes (MIT); the litellm/enterprise directory has its own licence.", "runs_on": "Python or Docker host; Postgres database for virtual keys and spend tracking.", "setup": "moderate: Docker or pip, a config file, provider keys and Postgres.", "github_stars": 63220, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-11-13", "last_release": "2026-11-13", "zekai_score": 9.5, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/litellm/" }, { "name": "one-api-pro", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "MIT", "best_for": "Reselling API access with subscription plans", "difference": "one-api-pro is a self-hosted gateway built on one-api that adds subscription plans, active-active clusters and per-channel cost controls, aimed at operators who resell or share model access.", "website": "https://github.com/modelbus/one-api-pro", "repository": "https://github.com/modelbus/one-api-pro", "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/one-api-pro/", "commercial_use": "README badge says MIT, but no LICENSE file was found; check before commercial use.", "runs_on": "Docker image for amd64 or arm64, or a prebuilt binary; persistent data volume.", "setup": "moderate: Docker or binary, upstream provider keys and a data volume.", "github_stars": 933, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-10-31", "last_release": "2026-10-31", "zekai_score": 7.3, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/one-api-pro/" }, { "name": "Bifrost", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "Apache-2.0", "best_for": "Fast self-hosted gateway with a web UI", "difference": "Apache-2.0 gateway unifying 23+ providers behind one OpenAI-compatible API, started with one npx or Docker command and configured in a built-in web UI; you host it.", "price_checked": "2026-11-13", "website": "https://github.com/maximhq/bifrost", "repository": "https://github.com/maximhq/bifrost", "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/bifrost/", "commercial_use": "Yes (Apache-2.0); enterprise features are sold separately.", "runs_on": "Node.js (npx) or Docker; web UI served on port 8080.", "setup": "easy: One npx or docker command, then configure in the web UI.", "github_stars": 9538, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-11-13", "last_release": "2026-11-10", "zekai_score": 8.3, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/bifrost/" }, { "name": "New API", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "AGPL-3.0", "best_for": "Self-hosted gateway with usage and cost controls", "difference": "AGPL-3.0 gateway with an admin console that manages routing, access, usage and costs for upstream model services; the Compose setup adds PostgreSQL and Redis.", "price_checked": "2026-11-13", "website": "https://github.com/QuantumNous/new-api", "repository": "https://github.com/QuantumNous/new-api", "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/new-api/", "commercial_use": "Yes; AGPL-3.0 means sharing changes if you run it as a service.", "runs_on": "Docker host; the Compose stack adds PostgreSQL and Redis.", "setup": "moderate: Docker with SQLite to try, Compose with PostgreSQL and Redis to run.", "github_stars": 51887, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-11-13", "last_release": "2026-11-13", "zekai_score": 7.8, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/new-api/" }, { "name": "Portkey AI Gateway", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "MIT", "best_for": "Lightweight open-source LLM router", "difference": "MIT-licensed gateway that routes to 250+ LLMs with retries, fallbacks and load balancing; the README says a 2.0 pre-release is merging Portkey's enterprise gateway into open source.", "price_checked": "2026-11-13", "website": "https://portkey.ai", "repository": "https://github.com/Portkey-AI/gateway", "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/portkey-gateway/", "commercial_use": "Yes (MIT).", "runs_on": "Node.js and npm, or Docker; the README quotes a 122kb footprint.", "setup": "easy: One npx command starts it locally.", "github_stars": 13378, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-05-25", "last_release": "2026-01-12", "zekai_score": 7.6, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/portkey-gateway/" } ], "faq": [ { "q": "What is the best alternative to OpenRouter in 2027?", "a": "Vercel AI Gateway is the best overall OpenRouter alternative on this page (0% markup, pay as you go). For no cost, Portkey has a free plan (10k recorded logs per month, 3-day log retention). To self-host, LiteLLM is open source (MIT (some parts under a separate licence))." }, { "q": "Is there a free version of OpenRouter?", "a": "Yes. OpenRouter has a free plan: 25+ free models, 50 requests a day. Paid plans start at 5.5% platform fee, checked on 11 Nov 2026." }, { "q": "Is there a 100% free alternative to OpenRouter?", "a": "Yes. LiteLLM, one-api-pro, Bifrost, New API, Portkey AI Gateway are open source and free to self-host. Vercel AI Gateway, Cloudflare AI Gateway, Portkey, Hugging Face Inference Providers have a free plan with limits, shown in the table." }, { "q": "What is cheaper than OpenRouter?", "a": "Cloudflare AI Gateway starts at Provider cost; 5% on Unified Billing credits, against 5.5% platform fee for OpenRouter, as listed on each vendor's pricing page on 11 Nov 2026." }, { "q": "Which is better, Vercel AI Gateway or OpenRouter?", "a": "Vercel states it charges no markup and no platform fee on tokens, including with your own key, where OpenRouter applies a 5.5% platform fee on Standard. Choose Vercel AI Gateway if you route most traffic through Vercel-hosted apps and want provider list prices with no platform fee. Stay with OpenRouter if you want 25+ free models and a catalogue spanning 80+ providers behind one key." }, { "q": "Why are people leaving OpenRouter?", "a": "The documented reasons are: OpenRouter's pricing page lists a 5.5% platform fee on Standard pay-as-you-go and 8% on Business, so cost scales with spend (11 Nov 2026); Free models are limited to 50 requests a day on the Free plan; the FAQ says buying at least 10 credits raises the free-model limit to 1,000 requests a day (11 Nov 2026). Each is sourced in the section above." }, { "q": "What is better than OpenRouter?", "a": "It depends on the goal. For no markup on provider tokens, Vercel AI Gateway and Cloudflare AI Gateway state pass-through pricing. For self-hosting, LiteLLM is the open-source option. For hosting open models yourself, Together AI is the closer fit." } ], "publisher": "Zekai (zekaiwork.com) — independently reviewed; prices read on vendor pages on the dates shown.", "licence": "Free to quote with a link to https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/openrouter/. Bulk copying or republishing the dataset is not permitted." }