# OpenRouter vs SiliconFlow

> OpenRouter scores 68.5 (B) to SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-siliconflow
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-siliconflow.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-siliconflow.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-siliconflow.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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: 2026-10-09

OpenRouter scores 68.5 (B) on agent readiness against SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do llm inference.

- OpenRouter: grade B, 68.5/100, rank #211 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openrouter.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openrouter.json
- SiliconFlow: grade D, 46.7/100, rank #848 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/siliconflow.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/siliconflow.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 136 models comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inference/index.md

## Which one, for what

### OpenRouter (B)

Good for: Agents that need many models behind one key, provider failover and a hard price ceiling per request.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 55 against 33
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 85 against 60
- Security & auth, 60 against 39
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 47
- Transparency & trust, 71 against 51

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No machine payment. USDC top-ups go to a prepaid balance

### SiliconFlow (D)

Good for: Agents that want recent open-weight chat models, plus image, video and speech, behind one OpenAI-style key at low per-token prices, and can live without a status page or SLA.

Watch for: No status page, incident history or SLA was found, and the terms disclaim any uptime or availability commitment


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | OpenRouter | SiliconFlow | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 33 | OpenRouter +22 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 65 | OpenRouter +25 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 60 | OpenRouter +25 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 60 | 39 | OpenRouter +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 35 | OpenRouter +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 47 | OpenRouter +37 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 51 | OpenRouter +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **68.5 · B** | **46.7 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | OpenRouter | SiliconFlow |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model router | Model API |
| Vendor | OpenRouter | SiliconFlow Labs Pte. Ltd. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://openrouter.ai/api/v1` | `https://api.siliconflow.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Proprietary service under the SiliconFlow Terms of Use |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-31 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-31 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 226 stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**SiliconFlow.** Per-token prices for every listed model are public, and one key reaches chat, embeddings, reranking, image, video and speech through OpenAI-style and Anthropic-style routes. No status page, SLA, security page or official SDK was found, release notes stop at 11 June 2026, and several model removals are dated the same day as their notice.

## Before you call either

### 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

### SiliconFlow

1. Set the OpenAI client's base URL to `https://api.siliconflow.com/v1`, or the Anthropic client's to `https://api.siliconflow.com/`, and send the key as a Bearer token
2. Take model ids from the model pages or `GET /v1/models`, not from the OpenAPI enum or the function calling guide, which list removed models
3. Check the `model` field of each response. On 11 June 2026 traffic for GLM-5 and Kimi-K2.5 was routed to successor models
4. Use `response_format` of `json_object` only where the model page says JSON Mode is supported, and keep `max_tokens` about 10,000 below the context length
5. Set the Claude Code environment variables by hand. The automated route pipes a script from an Amazon S3 bucket into bash

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, OpenRouter or SiliconFlow?

OpenRouter scores 68.5 (B) on agent readiness against SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D), and leads in every scored category.

### Do OpenRouter and SiliconFlow need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call OpenRouter and SiliconFlow without installing anything?

Yes. OpenRouter has a hosted endpoint at https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 and SiliconFlow at https://api.siliconflow.com/v1.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-siliconflow.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-siliconflow.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "openrouter", "b": "siliconflow"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare openrouter siliconflow`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openrouter.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/siliconflow.json

## Other comparisons with OpenRouter or SiliconFlow

- [Claude API vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-openrouter.md)
- [Claude API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Antseed vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-openrouter.md)
- [BlockRun.AI vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blockrun-ai-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-openrouter.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-openrouter.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-openrouter.md)
- [Cohere Chat API (Command models) vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-chat-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [DeepInfra vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-openrouter.md)
- [DeepInfra vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepinfra-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-openrouter.md)
- [DeepSeek API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-openrouter.md)
- [Gemini Developer API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [GroqCloud vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-openrouter.md)
- [GroqCloud vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Mistral AI API vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-api-vs-openrouter.md)
- [Mistral AI API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Novita AI vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/novita-ai-vs-openrouter.md)
- [Novita AI vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/novita-ai-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [OpenAI API vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-api-vs-openrouter.md)
- [OpenAI API vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-api-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [OpenRouter vs Prism Inference](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-prism-inference.md)
- [OpenRouter vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Prism Inference vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prism-inference-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [SambaCloud vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sambanova-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Antseed vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-openrouter.md)