OpenRouter vs Requesty: LLM Gateways Comparison
Compare OpenRouter and Requesty side by side. Both are tools in the LLM Gateways category.
Updated April 29, 2026
The short answer
Choose OpenRouter if largest model catalog in the gateway space — 300+ models.
Choose Requesty if extreme cost savings with smart routing and semantic caching delivering 40-80% API cost reduction.
Quick Comparison
| Category | LLM Gateways | LLM Gateways |
| Pricing | Free tier + pay-as-you-go (passthrough + 5.5% fee) | Usage-based (5% markup) |
| Best For | Developers and teams who want one API for hundreds of LLMs without provider lock-in | Enterprise AI teams needing governed LLM access |
| Website | openrouter.ai | requesty.ai |
| Key Features |
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Pros & Cons: OpenRouter vs Requesty
- +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
- −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
- +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
- −Tiny team of ~5 employees — startup durability is a concern for enterprise buyers
- −Limited community presence with no organic developer discussions on Reddit or Hacker News
- −Recent pivot from data analytics (2025) — long-term commitment to LLM gateway space unproven
- −No open-source option unlike competitor LiteLLM
Pricing: OpenRouter vs Requesty
- · Access to 25+ free models
- · 50 requests/day (1,000 with $10+ credits)
- · 20 requests/minute
- · OpenAI-compatible API
- · 300+ models, 60+ providers
- · Passthrough provider rates + 5.5% credit-card fee
- · 5% fee on crypto purchases
- · Per-API-key spend tracking
- · $6 in free credits
- · Access to all features
- · All 400+ models
- · Never auto-bills
- · All models and providers
- · Smart routing
- · Automatic failover
- · Load balancing
- · Volume discounts
- · EU data residency
- · SSO/SAML
- · SOC 2 compliance
What people are saying
Curated quotes from Hacker News, Reddit, Product Hunt, and review blogs. Dates shown so you can judge whether early criticism still applies.
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“OpenRouter adds 5% on top of the model provider's base prices — for a single API across 300+ models that's a fair tax.”
— Reddit user, Reddit / Toksta summary · Feb 2026 - +
“The ability to track cost of each request and separate usages through different API keys is huge for indie devs running side projects.”
— Hacker News commenter, Hacker News · Apr 2026 - ·
“OpenRouter claims ~25ms added latency in ideal conditions, with ~40ms typical — acceptable for most apps but noticeable on streaming.”
— Cost analysis, Costbench · Apr 2026 - −
“Free models are somewhat fragile with timeouts and require sleep between invocations — most users end up moving to paid models.”
— Honest review, Ofox.ai · Mar 2026
When to Choose OpenRouter vs Requesty
- Model-agnostic AI apps that swap providers freely
- Fallback routing when a primary provider is degraded
- Cost optimization across price-equivalent models
- Multi-provider LLM access
- Cost optimization
- Enterprise governance
About OpenRouter
OpenRouter is a unified LLM gateway that routes requests to the best available provider for each model, with a single API key giving access to 300+ models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral, Cohere, and dozens of smaller providers. It exposes an OpenAI-compatible API, so any existing OpenAI SDK code works unchanged.
Two pricing tiers: a Free tier (25+ free-of-charge models, 50 requests/day, 20 RPM, raised to 1,000/day after $10+ in credits) and Pay-as-you-go (300+ models, passthrough provider rates, 5.5% platform fee on credit-card purchases / 5% on crypto). OpenRouter adds ~25-40ms latency over direct provider calls in typical conditions.
Major use cases: avoiding vendor lock-in across OpenAI/Anthropic/Google, fallback routing when a provider is down, cost optimization across price-equivalent models, and tracking spend per API key. Free credits expire after 365 days. As of 2026, OpenRouter is the most-used model gateway for AI startups and indie developers building model-agnostic applications.
About Requesty
Requesty is a unified LLM gateway and router that provides access to 400+ models across 20+ providers through a single OpenAI-compatible API endpoint. Based in London, the company positions itself as 'Cloudflare for AI' — an infrastructure layer that sits between applications and LLM providers, handling intelligent routing, automatic failover, cost optimization, and enterprise governance.
Founded in 2023, Requesty pivoted from data analytics to the LLM gateway space in early 2025. The company raised a GBP 2M (~$3M) seed round led by 20VC (Harry Stebbings) with participation from Tapestry VC and others. At the time of funding, Requesty had reached $1.5M ARR and 25,000+ developers, growing to 50,000+ developers by early 2026. Notable enterprise clients include Shopify, Amadeus, Chargebee, and Pfizer.
Requesty differentiates through its transparent pricing model (flat 5% markup on base model costs), smart routing that automatically selects the optimal model per request, semantic caching that delivers up to 40% cost reduction, and enterprise governance features including PII detection, spending controls, and EU data residency. The platform claims 99.99% uptime SLA with failover in under 20ms.
What is LLM Gateways?
Unified API platforms and proxies that aggregate multiple LLM providers behind a single endpoint, providing model routing, fallback, caching, rate limiting, cost optimization, and access control.
Browse all LLM Gatewaystools →