OpenRouter vs Groq
OpenRouter and Groq side by side: what each one is, verified plan pricing and install commands where we have them, and the full review of each.
OpenRouter
Unified API for hundreds of models. One API key, one billing dashboard. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral, and more. Automatic fallbacks and load balancing.
Groq
LPU-powered inference at about 500 to 1,000 tokens/sec on GPT OSS models. Purpose-built chip with on-chip SRAM instead of HBM. OpenAI-compatible API. Free tier available.
At a glance
| Field | | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | AI Models | Infrastructure |
| Website | openrouter.ai | groq.com |
| Pricing | Free - $0: 25+ free models from 4 free providers, 50 requests/day; Standard - pay as you go, 5.5% fee on credit purchases: 500+ models, 80+ providers, auto-routing, budgets, prompt caching; Business - pay as you go, 8% fee on credit purchases: adds EU and US in-region routing, 1,000 workspaces, Workload Identity Federation; Enterprise - contract pricing with fee discounts, SSO/SAML, SLAs and invoicing; contact sales; Inference is billed at the provider's list price on every plan; BYOK includes $25,000/mo of list-price inference with no fee, then 5% | Free - rate-limited GroqCloud API access; Developer - pay-as-you-go per token with higher rate limits, Batch and Flex processing, billed monthly; e.g. GPT OSS 120B $0.15/M input, $0.60/M output; GPT OSS 20B $0.075/M input, $0.30/M output; Speech - Whisper Large V3 $0.111 per hour, Whisper Large V3 Turbo $0.04 per hour; Enterprise - contact sales; required for Llama 3.1 8B, Llama 3.3 70B, MiniMax M2.7 and Muse Spark Open |
| Install | npm install @openrouter/sdk or pip install openrouter or npm install @openrouter/agent | pip install groq or pnpm add ai @ai-sdk/groq |
| Models | 500+ models from 80+ providers behind one OpenAI-compatible API. You pick a model by slug (for example the ~openai/gpt-sol-latest alias, which tracks the newest model in a family), or send openrouter/auto to let the Auto Router choose, with automatic fallback to other providers when one fails. | GroqCloud serves open-weight models through an OpenAI-compatible API at api.groq.com/openai/v1, and you pick one by model ID such as openai/gpt-oss-120b. Self-serve production models are GPT OSS 120B (~500 tokens/s), GPT OSS 20B (~1,000 tokens/s) and Whisper, with Qwen 3.8 27B, Orpheus TTS and safety models in preview. |
| Last verified | October 27, 2026 | October 31, 2026 |
In Depth
OpenRouter
OpenRouter gives you a single API endpoint to access every major AI model - OpenAI (GPT), Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini), Meta (Llama), Mistral, and hundreds more. One API key, unified billing, automatic fallbacks if a provider is down. It's essential for comparing models without managing multiple API keys and billing accounts. I use it when I need to quickly swap between models for testing or when building apps that should work across providers.
Groq
Groq builds custom Language Processing Units (LPUs) designed exclusively for LLM inference. The result: about 500 tokens per second on GPT OSS 120B and about 1,000 on GPT OSS 20B, per Groq's model docs; Llama 4 Scout and Qwen 3 are no longer on the GroqCloud model list, and the next-generation hardware Groq is deploying is NVIDIA's Groq 3 LPX alongside Vera Rubin NVL72. The LPU uses on-chip SRAM instead of external HBM memory, eliminating the memory bandwidth bottleneck that limits GPU inference speed. The API is OpenAI-compatible (api.groq.com/openai/v1), making it a drop-in replacement for existing codebases, and a rate-limited free tier lets you try it before moving to pay-as-you-go Developer pricing. For latency-sensitive applications like real-time chat, voice agents, or any use case where time-to-first-token matters, that raw token speed is the reason to pick Groq.
FAQ
Answers taken from each tool's verified fact sheet, with the date it was last checked.
How much does OpenRouter cost?
As of October 27, 2026: Free - $0: 25+ free models from 4 free providers, 50 requests/day; Standard - pay as you go, 5.5% fee on credit purchases: 500+ models, 80+ providers, auto-routing, budgets, prompt caching; Business - pay as you go, 8% fee on credit purchases: adds EU and US in-region routing, 1,000 workspaces, Workload Identity Federation; Enterprise - contract pricing with fee discounts, SSO/SAML, SLAs and invoicing; contact sales; Inference is billed at the provider's list price on every plan; BYOK includes $25,000/mo of list-price inference with no fee, then 5%. Source: OpenRouter pricing, OpenRouter quickstart, OpenRouter blog, OpenRouter is joining Stripe.
How do I install OpenRouter?
Official install commands as of October 27, 2026: npm install @openrouter/sdk or pip install openrouter or npm install @openrouter/agent.
Which models does OpenRouter use?
As of October 27, 2026: 500+ models from 80+ providers behind one OpenAI-compatible API. You pick a model by slug (for example the ~openai/gpt-sol-latest alias, which tracks the newest model in a family), or send openrouter/auto to let the Auto Router choose, with automatic fallback to other providers when one fails.
How much does Groq cost?
As of October 31, 2026: Free - rate-limited GroqCloud API access; Developer - pay-as-you-go per token with higher rate limits, Batch and Flex processing, billed monthly; e.g. GPT OSS 120B $0.15/M input, $0.60/M output; GPT OSS 20B $0.075/M input, $0.30/M output; Speech - Whisper Large V3 $0.111 per hour, Whisper Large V3 Turbo $0.04 per hour; Enterprise - contact sales; required for Llama 3.1 8B, Llama 3.3 70B, MiniMax M2.7 and Muse Spark Open. Source: GroqCloud supported models, GroqCloud billing FAQs, GroqCloud rate limits, GroqCloud quickstart, GroqCloud changelog, Groq blog, Muse Spark Open on GroqCloud, NVIDIA Groq 3 LPX on Groq.
How do I install Groq?
Official install commands as of October 31, 2026: pip install groq or pnpm add ai @ai-sdk/groq.
Which models does Groq use?
As of October 31, 2026: GroqCloud serves open-weight models through an OpenAI-compatible API at api.groq.com/openai/v1, and you pick one by model ID such as openai/gpt-oss-120b. Self-serve production models are GPT OSS 120B (~500 tokens/s), GPT OSS 20B (~1,000 tokens/s) and Whisper, with Qwen 3.8 27B, Orpheus TTS and safety models in preview.
