OpenRouter Alternative for LLM API Routing in 2026

UnoRouter drops into OpenCode, Cline, Roo, Claude Code, Aider and SillyTavern. One OpenAI-compatible key at https://api.unorouter.com/v1 reaches 332+ models across 47+ providers including 237 free routes. In-browser character chat stays local. BYOK is supported. Start free. Credits do not expire. Skip it for VPC deploy or prompt-level governance.

OrcaRouter grades each prompt then routes it across 200+ models on https://api.orcarouter.ai/v1. orcarouter/auto scores requests in under 1 ms and claims about 40% lower inference cost. Mid-stream failover, guardrails and an agent firewall sit on the same hop. Pay-as-you-go, subscriptions or BYOK. Token markup is 0%. Skip it if you never need auto-routing.

TokenRouter reshapes leading LLMs into OpenAI, Claude and Gemini-compatible APIs. One key and one request shape cover coding tools, product builds and multi-protocol clients not only chat completions. Verified models and centralized controls are the pitch versus raw aggregators. Confirm current rates on-site. Skip it if public pricing is required on day one.

CheaperInference keeps your OpenAI request format and cuts the invoice. It claims up to 60% savings. Billing is usage-based with no routing surcharge and it states it never prices above direct list. A dashboard shows capacity, discounts and live provider activity. Skip it if you need auto quality routing or reserved capacity SLAs.

NaraRouter is an OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible gateway at https://router.bynara.id/v1. Auto model: auto/bynara. It covers 15+ providers including Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, DeepSeek, Zhipu, Moonshot and Mistral. The free plan includes flash-class models, 10M tokens a day and 15 RPM with no card. Paid plans mix daily IDR pricing with pay-as-you-go. Confirm region if US or EU residency is required.

NagaAI puts chat, images, embeddings, speech and moderation behind one OpenAI-compatible API. 250+ models. Selected routes such as GPT 5.6 Luna, Qwen3.8 Flash and GLM 5.3 Flash are advertised at −50% versus direct. One credit balance. Pay-as-you-go. Skip it if you need virtual keys and policy as a control plane.

MixRoute runs 250+ models at official provider prices with a 0% platform fee. Revenue comes from cloud reseller partnerships not token markup. Smart routing claims 20–40% savings by sending easy jobs off frontier models. Reserved capacity bypasses shared queues. Auto-failover runs in milliseconds. Prompts are not stored by default. Skip it if you need batch APIs today.

Runware is a multimodal inference API that now includes LLM chat. One POST /v1 covers image, video, audio, 3D, vision and text. The catalog includes 38 text LLMs plus hundreds of media models. REST for stateless work. WebSockets for low-latency sessions. Pay per request. Open-source models bill on compute time so faster runs cost less. Skip it for chat-only stacks.

LiteLLM is an open-source proxy in front of 100+ providers. Point your SDK at your own instance. Fallbacks, virtual keys, budgets and guardrails live in config. The community edition is free. Real cost is hosting and on-call time not a platform tax. Skip it if a small team cannot own another production service.

Portkey is an AI gateway for ops not a model marketplace. You bring OpenAI, Anthropic and Google keys. Virtual keys, per-team budgets, PII checks and semantic caching sit in front. The OSS gateway can be self-hosted. Managed plans commonly start near $49 a month. Skip it if you only want one prepaid catalog key.

Requesty is a hosted gateway aimed at production SLAs. Vendor claims include 400+ models, a 99.99% SLA and EU hosting. Caching and failover are first-class and added latency stays lower than a typical public marketplace. It sits between OpenRouter simplicity and LiteLLM ownership. Skip it if you still need the widest experimental catalog.

Together AI is an inference platform first and a router second. Serverless and dedicated endpoints run Llama, Mistral, Qwen and similar weights well. Fine-tuning and reserved GPUs give a path from experiment to capacity. Strong on open-model price and latency. Skip it if you need one key to every frontier vendor with automatic failover.