Have you tried OpenRouter (https://openrouter.ai)? I’ve been happy using it as a unified api provider with great model coverage (including Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, Grok, and the major open models). They charge 5% on top of each model’s api costs, but I think it’s worth it to have one centralized place to insert my money and monitor my usage. I like being able to switch out models without having to change my tools, and I like being able to easily head-to-head compare claude/gemini/gpt when I get stuck on a tricky problem.
Then you just have to find a coding tool that works with OpenRouter. Afaik claude/codex/cursor don’t, at least not without weird hacks, but various of the OSS tools do — cline, roo code, opencode, etc. I recently started using opencode (https://github.com/sst/opencode), which is like an open version of claude code, and I’ve been quite happy with it. It’s a newer project so There Will Be Bugs, but the devs are very active and responsive to issues and PRs.
Why would you use OpenRouter rather than some local proxy like LiteLLM? I don't see the point of sharing data with more third parties and paying for the privilege.
Not to mention that for coding, it's usually more cost efficient to get whatever subscription the specific model provider offers.
Thanks, I didn't knew about LiteLLM!
OpenRouter have some interesting providers, like Cerebras, which delivers 2,300 token/s on gpt-oss
I have used OpenRouter before but in this case I was trying to use it like Claude Code (agentic coding with a simple fixed monthly subscription). I don't want to pay per use via direct APIs as I am afraid it might have surprising bills. My point was, why Google makes it so damn hard even for paid subscriptions where it was supposed to work.