Compare routing options
A side-by-side look at manual model selection, OpenRouter, and GreatRouter — so you can pick the right tool for the job.
Side by side
Three approaches to the same problem: getting the right model for each request.
| Manual model selection Status quo | OpenRouter Aggregator | GreatRouter Intelligent routing | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per-provider list prices. You absorb price changes the day they ship. | Per-request markup. Hard to predict per-model cost without checking each call. | Pay-per-use with auto-recharge and per-request budget caps. No markup surprises. |
| Features | Hand-rolled routing rules, capability checks, and prompt rewriting per provider. | Manual model selection; you choose the model id in the request. | Automatic intent classification, capability filtering, scoring, and failover. Pin a model when you need determinism. |
| Supported models | Whatever you integrate — typically 1 to 5 providers. | Wide provider coverage; some capability filtering, no per-task optimization. | 1,574 routable models across 104 providers, organized by taxonomy and price tier. |
| Latency & reliability | Single-provider latency. Outages hit your customers directly. | Multi-hop proxy adds latency; failover is best-effort. | Direct provider calls with health-aware failover. The router steers away from degraded models automatically. |
| Observability | DIY: stitch logs from each provider into your own pipeline. | Basic per-request logs. | Per-request metadata (model, provider, tokens, cost, latency) plus per-org logs and dashboards. |
| Support | Whatever each provider offers — usually community forums and a ticketing queue. | Email support, response times vary. | Email support with organization-tier routing; engineering contact on enterprise plans. |
Why GreatRouter
Three scenarios and the right call for each.
When: You ship one product on one provider and never plan to change. → Manual
When: You need a wide model menu with manual selection and don't mind per-call pricing variance. → OpenRouter
When: You want the cheapest capable model picked automatically — and you care about cost ceilings, failover, and audit trails. → GreatRouter
Try it on a real request
Sign up, get a free API key, and make your first routing decision in under five minutes.