OpenRouter vs SambaCloud

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.

SambaCloud

Per-token prices and the model list are readable without a key at /v1/models, and a free tier needs no card. Production models get two to three weeks' notice before removal, 13 model ids left between March and June 2026, and the docs disagree with the live catalogue on MiniMax-M2.7.

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

SambaCloud

1. Call GET https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/models at start-up and use only ids it returns. The docs name models the endpoint no longer lists
2. Read x-ratelimit-remaining-requests and x-ratelimit-remaining-requests-day on every response. The free tier allows 20 requests a day per model
3. Treat 429 queue_full and 503 maintenance as retryable after a delay, and 410 model_deprecated as a signal to change model
4. Validate JSON output yourself. Schema enforcement is best effort and strict: true changes nothing
5. Check max_completion_tokens per model. DeepSeek-V3.1 caps output at 7,168 tokens and Llama 3.3 70B at 3,072