# OpenRouter: how AI models rank it, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Named in 41 judge labels across 1 category by 14 of 14 models. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/openrouter

## Standing by category

| Category | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [LLM gateways and observability](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/it-data/llm-gateways-and-observability/index.md) | 2% | 6 | 20% | 41 |

## What the models said for it

- "Best default for most mid-market teams: OpenRouter" (GPT-5.4 mini, LLM gateways)
- "Well‑documented, transparent marketplaces that expose provider lists, pricing, and model performance data (e.g., OpenRouter, Portkey AI Gateway)" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, LLM gateways)
- "Choose Cloudflare or OpenRouter if you want zero infrastructure maintenance and fast deployment out of the box." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, LLM gateways)
- "Choose OpenRouter instead if saving engineering time matters more than the roughly 5.5% credit-purchase fee" (Perplexity Sonar, LLM gateways)

## And against it

- "The one I would not recommend for a mid-market B2B company is OpenRouter" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, LLM gateways)
- ""avoid OpenRouter for anything with sensitive/PII data" [4]" (Muse Glimmer 30B, LLM gateways)
- "Exercise caution with OpenRouter, Portkey, Vercel AI Gateway, and similar services when prompts contain personal, regulated, proprietary, or agent data." (Perplexity Sonar, LLM gateways)
- "Less control over routing logic and observability compared to full-featured gateways like LiteLLM or Bifrost. Not a self-hostable option." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, LLM gateways)

## By model

| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |

## Sources returned with these answers

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named OpenRouter, from 118 of the 120 answers that named it (only the models that return a source list).

### Domains cited

- getmaxim.ai: 73
- dev.to: 67
- github.com: 41
- llmgateway.io: 34
- requesty.ai: 34
- openrouter.ai: 33 (its own site)
- respan.ai: 27
- gane.ai/index: 26
- cloudzero.com: 25
- portkey.ai: 24

### Pages cited

- https://dev.to/ericthompson21/when-is-a-managed-llm-gateway-worth-its-cost-5959: 27
- https://cloudzero.com/blog/llm-gateways: 25
- https://requesty.ai/blog/best-managed-llm-gateway: 25
- https://respan.ai/articles/best-llm-gateways: 23
- https://dataiku.com/blog/best-llm-gateways: 21
- https://concentrate.ai/blog/the-9-best-llm-gateways-in-2026-grouped-by-the-job-they-do: 20
- https://www.gane.ai/index/it/it-data/llm-gateways-and-observability/smb: 16
- https://arize.com/resources/best-llm-gateways-comparison: 15

## In its own words

What OpenRouter's own pages state, read 2026-09-28. Stated by the vendor, not checked by the index.

- Positioning: The unified interface for every model. Find the best models & prices for your prompts (https://openrouter.ai/)
- For: indie hackers, AI native startups, growing teams, and enterprises (https://openrouter.ai/pricing)
- Price stated: Better prices, better uptime, no subscriptions. (https://openrouter.ai/)
- Starting price: Free (https://openrouter.ai/pricing)
- Free plan or trial: Free (https://openrouter.ai/pricing)
- Integrations claimed: 80 (https://openrouter.ai/); 1 (https://openrouter.ai/blog/case-studies) (pages disagree)
- Certifications: SOC 2 Type II
- Hosting: EU, US
- Customers named: Replit, Hermes Agent, Kilo Code, NVIDIA, Framer, Zoom, Lovable, AMD

## What it publishes

Every page openrouter.ai exposes, read 2026-09-29: 5539 addresses. By kind, pages and the last 90 days:

- blog: 64 pages, 32 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-09-29
- case study: 2 pages, 1 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-09-15
- report or ebook: 136 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- comparison: 3268 pages, 3 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-09-22
- template or tool: 12 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-06-22
- glossary or explainer: 1 pages, 1 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-09-21
- podcast or video: 12 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- news or press: 70 pages, 12 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-09-22
- Recent: 2026-09-29 blog: Image to video models compared https://openrouter.ai/blog/insights/image-to-video-models-compared/
- Recent: 2026-09-28 blog: What Is Qwen 3.8? Models, Weights, Licenses, and Cost https://openrouter.ai/blog/insights/qwen-3-8
- Recent: 2026-09-23 blog: How to Use Jev: Moderation with the Jev API in TypeScript https://openrouter.ai/blog/tutorials/how-to-use-jev
- Recent: 2026-09-23 blog: Best Embedding Models in 2026: RAG, Multilingual, Code, and Image https://openrouter.ai/blog/insights/best-embedding-models-2026
- Recent: 2026-09-22 blog: What Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning? Specs, Context, and API https://openrouter.ai/blog/insights/nemotron-3-5-lightning
- Recent: 2026-09-22 comparison: Is Jev as Accurate as Frontier Models at Classification? https://openrouter.ai/blog/insights/jev-vs-claude-opus-5-classification

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, November 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.