Overview

Rating

10.0 / 10

Rating

Best For

Developers and teams who want one API for hundreds of LLMs without provider lock-in

Best For

Enterprise AI teams needing governed LLM access

Product Summary

OpenRouter is a unified LLM gateway providing OpenAI-compatible API access to 300+ models across 60+ providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral, and more). Pay-as-you-go with passthrough rates plus a 5.5% platform fee on credit purchases; free tier with 25+ models capped at 50 requests/day.

Product Summary

Unified LLM gateway and router with intelligent routing, automatic failover, cost optimization, and PII redaction. Access 400+ models through a single API.

Starting Price

$0Per forever

Starting Price

Free

Free Trial

Yes

Free Trial

Yes

Free Version

Yes

Free Version

Yes

Website

openrouter.ai

Website

requesty.ai

Key features

Core capabilities each platform advertises.

OpenRouter

300+ models across 60+ providers via one OpenAI-compatible API
Automatic routing to best available provider (latency, price, uptime)
Per-API-key spend tracking and rate limiting
Free tier: 25+ models, 50-1,000 req/day depending on credits
BYO API key for select providers (no markup)

Requesty

400+ model access
Intelligent routing & failover (<20ms)
Cost optimization & spending controls
PII redaction
Prompt caching

Strengths and tradeoffs

What each tool does well, and the limitations to keep in mind.

OpenRouter

Pros

Largest model catalog in the gateway space — 300+ models
OpenAI-compatible API drops in with zero code change
Reasonable platform fee — 5.5% over passthrough rates
Per-key spend tracking and isolated rate limits
Active free tier viable for prototyping

Cons

Adds ~25-40ms latency over direct provider calls
Credits expire after 365 days
5.5% fee + $0.80 minimum charge stings on small purchases
Free models can be flaky — timeouts and required cooldowns

Requesty

Pros

Extreme cost savings with smart routing and semantic caching delivering 40-80% API cost reduction
Near-zero integration friction — OpenAI-compatible API requires only a single base_url change
Best-in-class reliability with 99.99% uptime SLA and automatic failover in under 20ms
Transparent pricing with flat 5% markup, no hidden fees, and generous free tier
Enterprise governance with PII scrubbing, spending limits, approved model lists, and EU data residency

Cons

OpenRouter or Requesty — which should you choose?

Choose OpenRouter if you wantChoose if you want

Model-agnostic AI apps that swap providers freely
Fallback routing when a primary provider is degraded
Cost optimization across price-equivalent models
Side-by-side model comparison from a single API
Multi-tenant apps with per-tenant spend tracking

Choose Requesty if you wantChoose if you want

Multi-provider LLM access
Cost optimization
Enterprise governance
Failover & reliability
Data privacy compliance

Compare OpenRouter and Requesty on your own traffic

10KFree traces/mo

500+Models

5 minSetup

Respan lets you trace LLM and agent calls across any model or framework, A/B test prompts on production traffic, and route requests across 500+ models through one gateway.

Try Respan free

OpenRouter vs Requesty (2026)

Overview

Key features

Strengths and tradeoffs

OpenRouter or Requesty — which should you choose?

Compare OpenRouter and Requesty on your own traffic

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