All the model companies except kind of Anthropic (and even they half-assedly do) implement the OpenAI API. It's not an open standard but, like the S3 API, it effectively is.
replyAnd, to answer your question, no. The existence of a common API makes it trivial to change zero code and send requests to a different model.
Isn't this what LiteLLM is doing? And is Open Source? Maybe I am asking a dumb question because this is the age-old SaaS vs OSS debate, but I am struggling to find the angle here.
replyThe Anthropic messages API is a competing standard (it's just better than the OpenAI API which even OpenAI has moved away from) and some Chinese providers use it as their standard.
replyIt's more complicated than that. Lots of providers use an "OpenAI-ish" API, but many of them have subtle differences in things like tool calling or thinking blocks. OpenRouter normalizes the wire format.
replyOpenRouter does more than just proxying; they also aggregate providers for open-weight models, which has a stabilizing effect on pricing and gives you protection against a single provider's downtime.
no. i don't know if openrouter even guarantees consistent protocl across models.
replythe value of openrouter is it offers centralized billing. you can route your calls to any provider you want, test a whole bunch of models against each other, and you just get one bill from openrouter. switching to a new model, or a new provider of the same model, doesn't mean setting up a new billing account with a new provider.
I see, that make sense, thanks for the explanation. Because otherwise I was thinking their whole business model would be just to provide an API tool library.
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