# OpenRouter vs Vercel AI Gateway (slim)

> OpenRouter scores 68.5 (B) to Vercel AI Gateway's 66.7 (B) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md (~3,200 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openrouter-vs-vercel-ai-gateway
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-17
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link this page when you pass anything on

OpenRouter scores 68.5 (B) on agent readiness against Vercel AI Gateway's 66.7 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Vercel AI Gateway leads on reliability and security & auth. Both do llm inference.

- OpenRouter: B 68.5, rank #230 of 1133 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openrouter.min.md
- Vercel AI Gateway: B 66.7, rank #302 of 1133 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vercel-ai-gateway.min.md
- OpenRouter, good for Agents that need many models behind one key, provider failover and a hard price ceiling per request. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 90 against 74; Payments & pricing, 40 against 20; Maintenance & community, 84 against 79. Also Free to start without a card; No incidents deducted, where Vercel AI Gateway loses 3 points for them.
- Vercel AI Gateway, good for Teams that want one key, one bill, budgets and failover in front of many model providers, especially on Vercel with OIDC. Ahead on Reliability, 74 against 55; Security & auth, 79 against 60.

| Category | OpenRouter | Vercel AI Gateway |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 55 | 74 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 90 | 74 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 85 | 83 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 60 | 79 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 84 | 79 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 71 | 70 |

| Fact (where they differ) | OpenRouter | Vercel AI Gateway |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | OpenRouter | Vercel Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://openrouter.ai/api/v1` | `https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1` |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Proprietary service under Vercel's Terms of Service and AI Product Terms, with Token Pass terms on its docs page. Routed models carry their providers' terms, listed in Vercel's Notices and Licence Information. The `@ai-sdk/gateway` provider is Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-17 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-31 | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-31 | 2026-06-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 226 stars | 29.6M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3/5 (4) |