# OrcaRouter

> Smart routing across 200+ LLMs — frontier quality, open-source prices

- **Website**: https://www.orcarouter.ai/
- **Uneed Page**: https://www.uneed.best/tool/orcarouter
- **Pricing**: Freemium
- **Category**: Business
- **Tags**: API & Data, AI
- **Submitted by**: @jinhao.song-28d2
- **Launch Date**: 2026-10-12
- **Social Links**: [Twitter](https://x.com/OrcaRouter) | [GitHub](https://github.com/Continuum-AI-Corp/OrcaRouter-Lite) | [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@OrcaRouter)

## About

OrcaRouter

OrcaRouter is an OpenAI-compatible API gateway that routes each request across 200+ large language models through a single endpoint. Instead of integrating and paying for every provider separately, you point your app at one URL and let OrcaRouter pick the right model for each request.

How it works

Every prompt is scored by difficulty in under a millisecond, then routed to the model that best balances cost, speed, and quality. Routine tasks go to lower-cost open-source models (DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi); harder reasoning goes to frontier models (Claude, GPT, Gemini). This keeps answer quality steady while cutting LLM costs by roughly 40% compared with sending everything to a frontier model.

Key features

- OpenAI-compatible: migrate by changing one base URL and API key; streaming, tool calling, vision, and reasoning all behave as your SDK expects.

- 200+ models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, xAI, Qwen, Moonshot, and more.

- Zero token markup: pay each provider's public price, no surcharge.

- Glass-box transparency: every request shows its difficulty score, the model chosen, and the provider used.

- Automatic sub-50ms failover, spend caps with alerts, unified billing, and cross-provider caching.

Editions

OrcaRouter (managed): a cloud service with adaptive routing, SSO, audit logs, and governance.

OrcaRouter-Lite (open source): MIT-licensed, self-hostable, bring-your-own-key; runs with a single docker compose up.

Pricing

- Hacker — free forever (3 API keys, all models, automatic failover).

- Team — $29/month (unlimited keys, team controls, analytics).

- Enterprise — custom (SLA, private deployment, custom routing rules).

Who it's for

Developers and teams that want multi-model access without vendor lock-in, lower LLM bills without sacrificing quality, and budget enforcement with auditability.