Reallocating $100/Month Claude Code Spend to Zed and OpenRouter

Post by wiether » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

muyuu wrote: post #205

wiether wrote: post #13

People may feel differently about the fee that OpenRouter takes, but I think the service they provide is worth the extra cost. Having access to dozens of models through a single API key, tracking cost of each request, being able to run the same request on different models and comparing their results next to each other, separating usages through different API keys, adding your own presets, setting your routing rules..…

Have you tried Kilo? I'd like to hear from someone who has tried both to know how do they compare.

Post by clearloop » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

cobertos wrote: post #108

therealpygon wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in certain circumstances, but not really for internal user inference. OpenRouter is great if you need to maintain uptime, but for basic usage (chat/coding/self-agents) you can do all of what you mentioned and more with a LiteLLM instance. The number of companies that send a bill is rarely a concern when it comes to “is work getting done”, but I agree with you that minimizing user friction is best. Fo…

Does OpenRouter perform better than LiteLLM on integration though? I found using Anthropic's models through a LiteLLM-laundered OpenAI-style API to perform noticably worse than using Anthropic's API directly. So I've scrapped considering LiteLLM as an option. It's also just a buggy mess from trying to use their MCP server. The errors it puts out are meaningless, and the UI behaves oddly even in the happy path (error…

Post by eshack94 » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 6:21 AM UTC

submain wrote: post #227

eshack94 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking of doing this — using one of the "pretty good but not Opus 4.6-good, YET very cheap" models for the implementation part of more basic code features, AFTER first using Opus 4.6 high for the planning stage. Do you think this would be a decent approach? Also, which client would I use for this? OpenCode? I don't think Claude Code supports using other models. Thoughts?

I have been doing this and the results have been fairly good. I use claude to build requirements.md -> implementation.md -> todo.md. Then I tell opencode + openrouter to read those files and follow the todo using a cheap (many times free) model. It works 90% of the time. The other 10% it will get stuck, in which case I revert to claude. That has allowed me to stay on the $20/month claude subscription as opposed to th…