OpenRouter vs LiteLLM

A fair comparison of OpenRouter and LiteLLM, using each company's own pricing pages.

Quick answer

OpenRouter is best for developers who want fast access to many models. LiteLLM is best for platform teams that want to own and customize their gateway.

At a glance

	OpenRouter	LiteLLM
What it is	A model marketplace and router: one API key for 600+ models.	An open-source LLM proxy and SDK that you host yourself.
Pricing	Provider list prices with no markup, plus a 5.5% platform fee on credit purchases on its Standard plan. Bring-your-own-key usage is free up to $25,000 of list-price inference a month, then 5%.	Free to self-host under the MIT license. An enterprise tier with SSO, audit logs and custom SLAs is priced on request.
Setup	Instant self-serve signup.	Deploy and run it in your own cloud.
Models	600+ models.	Any provider it supports, through your own keys.
Best for	Developers who want fast access to many models.	Platform teams that want to own and customize their gateway.

2026 context

In August 2026 Stripe agreed to acquire OpenRouter (announcement). Terms were not disclosed.

On March 24, 2026, two malicious LiteLLM releases (1.82.7 and 1.82.8) were on PyPI for about 40 minutes. The official Docker image was not affected (LiteLLM's security update).

Choose OpenRouter if

A very large catalog behind one key.
Pay-as-you-go credits.
Enterprise plans with SSO and contractual SLAs.

Choose LiteLLM if

Full control and self-hosting.
Open source (MIT).
A large provider list.

If your goal is a smaller bill

Neither OpenRouter nor LiteLLM guarantees that your bill goes down. apicuts does: we switch on caching, routing, batching, and prompt and output fixes for you, and if your all-in cost isn't at least 20% lower after our 10% fee, you pay nothing. It uses the OpenAI API format, so it can also sit behind either of them.

APIcuts vs OpenRouter · APIcuts vs LiteLLM

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between OpenRouter and LiteLLM?

OpenRouter: A model marketplace and router: one API key for 600+ models. LiteLLM: An open-source LLM proxy and SDK that you host yourself.

Is OpenRouter cheaper than LiteLLM?

OpenRouter: Provider list prices with no markup, plus a 5.5% platform fee on credit purchases on its Standard plan. Bring-your-own-key usage is free up to $25,000 of list-price inference a month, then 5%. LiteLLM: Free to self-host under the MIT license. An enterprise tier with SSO, audit logs and custom SLAs is priced on request.

Is there an alternative to both OpenRouter and LiteLLM?

If cost is the priority, apicuts guarantees at least 20% lower all-in LLM costs after its fee, live in one day.

Sources: OpenRouter's pricing page, LiteLLM's pricing page. Checked October 30, 2026.

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