LiteLLM vs OpenRouter: A Model Gateway You Run vs One You Rent

LiteLLM self-hosts through Docker, Helm or Terraform and supports fully air-gapped environments; OpenRouter runs only as a hosted service.

You inherit the hardening: Wiz found 9.6% of 3,074 exposed LiteLLM instances accepted the default sk-1234 master key or required no authentication.

One hosted endpoint reaches 500+ models on paid plans, and the Free plan offers 25+ free models with no deployment.

The Free plan is capped at 50 requests per day; paid use adds a 5.5% platform fee.

Virtual keys with per-key, team and user budgets and rate limits ship in LiteLLM's free open-source plan; OpenRouter's budgets and controls start on its paid Standard plan.

SSO and audit logs are LiteLLM Enterprise features, priced through sales.

LiteLLM adds no platform fee on top of provider pricing; OpenRouter charges 5.5% (Standard) or 8% (Business) on pay-as-you-go.

OpenRouter's BYOK waives its fee on the first $25,000 a month of list-price inference ($200,000 on Enterprise), then charges 5%.

OpenRouter is operated by the vendor; LiteLLM operators must track releases, and CVE-2026-59822 was exploited in the wild and added to CISA KEV on Sep 2, 2026.

The official LiteLLM Proxy Docker image was not affected by the March 2026 PyPI compromise, per LiteLLM.