Classic HN dev: it's just an API proxy! I can reproduce it myself for cheaper!
Ignoring that you can't reproduce the widespread adoption and mindshare OpenRouter has already built.
That's what Stripe is spending $7 billion on.
Classic HN dev: it's just an API proxy! I can reproduce it myself for cheaper!
Ignoring that you can't reproduce the widespread adoption and mindshare OpenRouter has already built.
That's what Stripe is spending $7 billion on.
You definitely can build an LLM router with only the features you need (even the ones absent in OR!) for cheaper. Openrouter is 5% markup on all token usage. If you're a serious pay-per-use customer of AI, that's a lot of money.
Mindshare ? Nowadays people switch models like shirts, and providers faster. Its not Oracle or Microsoft...Those 7 billion are just a dropdown menu...
What is the prohibiting factor to getting these?
What mindshare? It literally is an API gateway with a rather minuscule usage that anyone can drop at any moment to use any other proxy or when providers forbid the use of their services via proxies (like it happened with Anthropic already).
How the hell can it be anywhere close to $7 billion?
When Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion, it had 30 million users with hardly anyone else competing in the space.