# BlockRun.AI vs OpenRouter

> BlockRun.AI has a score of 72.5 (BB) against OpenRouter's 68.8 (B). Both do llm inference. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 60 points. BlockRun.AI accepts x402. OpenRouter doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

BlockRun.AI has a score of 72.5 (BB) against OpenRouter's 68.8 (B). Both do llm inference. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 60 points. BlockRun.AI accepts x402. OpenRouter doesn't.

- BlockRun.AI: grade BB, 72.5/100, rank #68 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/blockrun-ai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/blockrun-ai.json
- OpenRouter: grade B, 68.8/100, rank #119 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openrouter.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openrouter.json

## Which one, for what

Pick BlockRun.AI for security & auth (+10), payments & pricing (+60).

Pick OpenRouter for schema & documentation (+15), agent ergonomics (+15), transparency & trust (+8).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | BlockRun.AI | OpenRouter | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 55 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 90 | OpenRouter +15 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 85 | OpenRouter +15 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 70 | 60 | BlockRun.AI +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 100 | 40 | BlockRun.AI +60 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 84 | BlockRun.AI +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 66 | 74 | OpenRouter +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **72.5 · BB** | **68.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | BlockRun.AI | OpenRouter |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | Model router |
| Vendor | BlockRun, Inc. | OpenRouter |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://openrouter.ai/api/v1` |
| Transports | stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | yes | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) |
| Tools exposed | 19 | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-10-01 |
| Popularity | 5 stars, 679 PyPI/wk | 226 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**BlockRun.AI.** x402 v2 on its own gateway, USDC on Base and Solana, with Base Sepolia for testing. The status page shows live checks only and keeps no incident history.

**OpenRouter.** Public OpenAPI document, llms.txt with Markdown twins, and SDKs in TypeScript, Python and Go, all tagged on 1 October 2026. No machine payment. USDC top-ups go to a prepaid balance.

## Before you call either

### BlockRun.AI

1. Fund a dedicated wallet with a small USDC balance. The balance is the spending cap
2. Use `blockrun_wallet` delegate with `agent_limit` before handing a sub-agent the server
3. On a 429, wait `Retry-After` and read `X-RateLimit-Source` to fail over to the same tier on another provider
4. Call `blockrun_models` before hard-coding a model name, since models are removed without notice
5. Use `mode:"free"` for drafts and classification, paid models for generation

### OpenRouter

1. Set `provider.data_collection: "deny"` or `provider.zdr: true` when the prompt holds anything private
2. Pass a `models` list so a failed provider falls through to the next one
3. Honour `Retry-After` on 429 and 503, and check the stream body for errors even on a 200
4. Set `max_price` so a routed request can't land on an expensive provider
5. Free models allow 50 requests a day until $10 of credit has been bought. Check `GET /api/v1/key` for what's left

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